Unit 234

Directed by Andy Tennant, Unit 234 follows a storage-facility manager (Isabelle Fuhrman’s Laurie) as she finds herself under attack after discovering a man (Jack Huston’s Clayton) inside a locker. It’s a solid premise that’s employed to woefully underwhelming effect by Tennant, as the filmmaker, armed with Derek Steiner’s screenplay, delivers a low-rent and sluggishly-paced B-movie that does, for much of its running time, contain distressingly few compelling attributes – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by John Pardue’s styleless cinematography and a sluggish, uneventful narrative (ie much of the picture’s midsection is devoted to the characters’ hopelessly tiresome cat-and-mouse escapades). And although Fuhrman and her costars turn in solid work, Unit 234, which admittedly does boast a nifty (yet too-little-too-late) third-act twist, ultimately doesn’t even come close to justifying its often interminable 86 minutes and is, in the final analysis, a would-be thriller that feels like it could (and should) be so much better.

*1/2 out of ****