A group of clumsy, bungling twenty-something-year-old cat burglars target the home of an elderly couple as their next big heist in the psychological thriller THE OWNERS, a film hitting theaters and digital for the fall movie season. The thieves get more than what they bargained for when things take an unexpected twist in what should’ve been an easy score. Will this be the next big thing in suspenseful twisted tales that moviegoers seek, or just provide for a puzzled scratch on the head coupled with the yawn of boredom?
Terry (Andrew Ellis) gets information from his mom, who serves as a maid for Dr. Huggins (Sylvester McCoy) and his wife Ellen (Rita Tushingham), that there is a hidden safe in the retired couple’s home. Terry enlists the help of his friends Nathan (Ian Kenny) and Gaz (Jake Curran) to come up with a plan to break into the home when the couple is away and steal whatever is kept in the safe. To ensure an easy get away, Nathan ropes his girlfriend Mary (Maisie Williams) into being the driver for the getaway car. The 3 guys break in and begin ransacking the home in frustration when they can’t find the safe. Finally the safe is discovered in basement, but much to their disappointment it can’t be opened. Meanwhile, Mary is becoming increasingly impatient at the length of time it is taking to complete the job so Nathan finally tells her to just come inside the home. Mary is unaware that a decision has been made to wait for the couple to return and force them into revealing the code to the safe.
Dr. Huggins and his wife arrive to find a vandalized home and three young men forcing them into the basement, tying them up, and threatening bodily harm if the combination to the safe is not revealed. Mary is horrified at the treatment the seemingly delicate couple is experiencing and pleads with her male friends to stop. Dr. Huggins is desperately trying to negotiate with his captures so they don’t harm his wife. Gaz, the ring leader and bully of the group, puts a knife in Nathan’s hands and tells him to cut off Ellen’s finger if her husband doesn’t give them what they want. Things are getting violent and out of control. Complete chaos ensues with everyone screaming in the room as the burglary completely falls apart. Nathan, who realizes that things have gone totally insane in what should have been an easy a simple home robbery, cracks and attacks Gaz. During the struggle Nathan is stabbed and seriously wounded allowing Gaz to break free and grab a chain saw. The thug is about to saw off one of Ellen’s body parts when Mary grabs a large hammer and smashes Gaz’s head killing him in the process. She then frees the doctor and his wife and begs them to save Nathan’s life. Terry is of no use during the crisis and is simply frozen in terror while things unravel. Mary and Terry wait in the hallway as the doctor works to save Nathan.
Mary wants to call an ambulance and get Nathan to a hospital as quickly as possible but she soon discovers that something is amiss with the married twosome that should be helping save her boyfriend. The tables are suddenly turned when Mary finds herself a prisoner and at the mercy of two very creepy and eerily strange individuals.
THE OWNERS starts off with as a very intense nail-biting experience. Watching the motley crew of robbers botch things up and come unhinged, as each decision they make only makes things go from bad to worse, provides for quite a bit of suspense. But sadly at the point when the plot twists and the tables are turned on the main characters, the storyline falls apart. Initially the homeowners are depicted as fragile older folks but it then turns out that they are actually extremely sinister. There are clues given as to what motivates the couple to behave so oddly, but never a clear cut explanation. The audience is left to guess and string pieces of information together to make assumptions about why the seniors are diabolically insane. With nothing to hold the second half of the movie together, the scenes that were probably meant to be scary come off comically stupid.
Massie Williams is the one saving grace in this movie. The GAME OF THRONES actress shows off her acting chops as she portrays a terrorized girl caught in a game of survival as she tries to outsmart the captors that have her living a nightmare in a nut house. Her performance is what keeps things interesting and without her in the lead role there is a good chance this movie really would’ve fallen apart. THE OWNERS doesn’t cut it as an intelligent mystery thriller. The film provides a weird twist at the end that pretty much makes no sense. It’s an odd production that will only leave those watching pondering what the heck that was all about and wonder if they can ever get the time wasted on this film returned in full.
