Detained

Detained is a strong contender for worst film of the year so far, I haven't seen a thriller this insanely overblown and outlandishly meaningless since... I dunno. It's sad to see a classy actress like Abbie Cornish stuck in this crap, playing a young woman who wakes up in a police station and is grilled by two hostile detectives (Moon Bloodgood & Laz Alonso) about a supposed hit and run that she has no memory of. Of course that's not really what's going on, and once the film gets past that initial setup and tries to orchestrate a bunch of stupid twists that it thinks are oh so clever, you'll abandon all hope of making sense of it. It tries everything to impress; weird double crosses, red herrings, nonsensical plot turns and even an eye rolling Keyser Soze angle that makes it feel even more like a try-hard ripoff. I have seen thrillers that walk a fine line in making sense of their more bombastic elements and even some that don't, but get a free pass on sheer energy and enthusiasm alone. This one gets neither; it's loud, mean spirited, lazy storytelling of the worst kind.