This may not be the easiest movie to watch for many people, mostly due to the way in which it’s filmed; the camera shakes pretty much continually in an attempt to show the agitation of our main character. It gets worse as time goes on and the pressure grows.

A bored and disillusioned muslim youth, living in California, is called to attend his father’s funeral in the Philippines. Adam isn’t happy with his job as a marina security guard, nor with his American girlfriend. He’s distancing himself from his language, culture, homeland, and even his family. Before his flight out of LAX, Adam calls his girlfriend from the terminal to say goodbye; a perfect time for her to pick to break up with him. Facing a long and lonely flight, made much worse by seeing yourself as truly alone, Adam even tries to kill himself with a handful of his medication (trying to overdose with Xanax for all we know). He doesn’t know lonely at this point.

On landing, his family isn’t waiting at the airport as agreed. Instead, Adam receives a phone call that makes him even more alone. In a plot vaguely reminiscent of an early season of 24 or of that from the movie Phonebooth, Adam is forced to perform a variety of tasks in order to save his mother and sister. His family is being held hostage and any failure to comply with demands is promised to result in death for his loved ones.

I could have lived without the last 5 minutes of the movie; it tried to tie thing up and spell out what happened a bit more than I like. I would have much preferred to see things fade to black as Adam crossed back over that rickety bridge. I’d rather have made up my own mind about what happened to Adam, his girlfriend, his family, and anyone else than have to deal with an ending that feels like a cop-out. Regardless, it’s a good movie if you’re not prone to motion sickness.