Shuttle
Peyton List
Cameron Goodman
Shuttle is a 2008 horror movie starring Peyton List, Cameron Goodman and Tony Curran. I’d say it’s a horror movie, but in reality it is one of those films that takes a very real crime, in this case human trafficking, and tries to put a Hollywood spin on it. That essentially makes it a crime drama that doesn’t have to adhere to the rules of the real world. If this type of subject matter is poorly done it becomes ridiculous and offensive to the real victims of similar crimes. Shuttle is one of the worst offenders I’ve seen in a long time. Everything from bungling hundreds of opportunities to escape to having bad guys that can’t be killed makes Shuttle nothing more than an unrealistic B-Movie slasher flick. The only thing that was watchable in the movie was the acting performances of the main cast which considering the script they had to work with, were fantastic. Writer or Director Mr. Anderson? You can’t do both and make a quality horror film. Sorry.
Quick Summary of Peyton List and Cameron Goodman in Shuttle
Shuttle starts off at the airport and opens up on Peyton List and Cameron Goodman as their characters return from a girls weekend in Mexico. I will have to give some props to the filmmakers here as they had some decent foreshadowing showing both the sex traffickers stalking Peyton List and Cameron Goodman, but also building up Peyton Lists characters backstory explaining why she knows sign language so that she can signal a video only camera in a grocery store later on in the film. Everything goes downhill from there, not just with the story, but the ridiculous plot holes, wild calls to suspend disbelief even for what would otherwise be a normal everyday action or statement or vice versa. Right from the opening airport scene in Shuttle we are then introduced to the most inefficient, ineffective, overly expensive rouse to kidnap someone that has ever been used outside a comic book movie. I….won’t….keep….you….in….suspense….any….longer It’s an Airport Shuttle. That’s right, the device these sex traffickers are using is a $150,000 dollar, completely decked out, logos all over the side, can see it coming from a mile away…….Airport Shuttle.
The entire plan, which would have taken weeks to hatch, almost gets blown up completely when Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters almost take a competing airport shuttle instead. Then two guys Peyton List and Cameron Goodman met at the airport decide to tag along. I mean you could have just used a taxi cab and avoided that problem and saved a lot of cash, but whatever stupid sex traffickers. Now that the sex traffickers have Peyton List and Cameron Goodman characters in the Shuttle, they start the process of getting rid of the two guys that tagged along. Needless to say everyone figures out something is wrong and the sex traffickers have to pull guns and reveal their malicious intent. Then the poor writing comes into full view as the kidnappers began to force Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters to do odd and counterproductive tasks that would only have a place in an operation done by complete amateurs.
First, maybe in some weird effort to convince Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters that they were just being robbed while they were being kidnapped, the sex traffickers have Cameron Goodman’s character withdraw money from everyone’s ATM account. Which would of course leave a paper trail connecting those people, plus there are cameras at ATMs, stoplights, banks, etc. (Obviously the less stops you make the better.) And of course Peyton List’s character makes a pathetic escape attempt. In the struggle the groceries, which the sex traffickers intended to put in a box with Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters, gets destroyed and they have to go buy more. WHY THE HELL DID THE SEX TRAFFICKERS TAKE THE GROCERIES IN THE SHUTTLE WITH THEM?!!??!?!!! Then they send Peyton List’s character into the store and she doesn’t call the police because the sex trafficker, played by Tony Curran, said he was going to kill her friend Cameron Goodman’s character. Hey stupid bitch, he already tried to kill your girlfriend at the bank, he’s gonna fucking kill her no matter what.
I know that the argument is that people behave differently when you’re in a life or death situation than you would think if you were just looking on from the outside. And that’s why Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters helped the kidnappers at every turn, thinking if I can just get through this next thing I can get out of here. That’s fine for short several minute encounters, people can be quickly and easily controlled when they don’t yet know what is happening. Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters had many hours to figure out what was going on and come up with a plan to stop it. For instance, the sex trafficker has Cameron Goodman’s character dye Peyton List’s hair blonde, presumably so she was less easy to recognize while they shipped her out of the country. Peyton List and Cameron Goodman had already destroyed a bottle of hair dye in the Shuttle and the kidnappers had to change plans which gave Peyton List an additional escape opportunity at the store. So why didn’t they just pour the dye down the sink? All of these are insignificant compared to the two glaring unnecessary plot holes that destroy what wasn’t a completely terrible ending.
The first plot problem I have is two-fold and involves the selection of an expensive airport Shuttle as the kidnapping mechanism. For one the Shuttle got completely trashed and all the markings and identification have now been caught on multiple cameras around the city. The sex traffickers have to get an entirely new vehicle. That being said, it turns out that the Shuttle has seat belts that lock. So all the sex traffickers actually had to do was say “buckle up” and then go around one by one and drug everybody and the movie’s over. In addition the sex traffickers run a hose from the exhaust through a broken window in the Shuttle to kill Cameron Goodman’s character. That large a space, with no one revving the engine, that could take hours. I know there was a side plot that NEVER developed about Tony Curran character’s guilt and that maybe he was forced into this, but how is torturing someone for hours more humane than a bullet? That brings me to my second point of absurdity, the reason why Cameron Goodman’s character was killed.
Back when Peyton List and Cameron Goodman were doing those ridiculous tasks for their captors, they threw their bags into a dumpster. Well for some reason Tony Curran’s friend went and picked them up and brought them back to the warehouse. Tony Curran then finds prescription Monistat and questions Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters. Turns out Cameron Goodman’s character had a yeast infection a few days ago. So apparently she must die. Even though the original plan is to ship Peyton List and Cameron Goodman in a box to China, while they spend the whole time shitting in a litter box. My point – every single person alive, man, women, child will get a yeast infection in that scenario, so it should be a plus that Cameron Goodman brought along her own medication. Really the entire ending just went to shit. Peyton List stabs him in his femoral artery and shoots off 50% of his head and of course even though Peyton List’s character has zero injuries and is actually well rested he easily overpowers her and puts her in a box. At that point I was all for the bad guys winning, especially after all the mistakes, stupidity and pathetic escape attempts by Cameron Goodman and Peyton List’s characters, but then the writer manages to ruin it all again in a split second.
I would imagine that after seeing all your friends killed, being assaulted, tortured for hours and then thrown in a box and sent across the ocean on a journey that will take three to four weeks where you’ll be exposed to -40 degree temps and 150 degree temps might be somewhat disheartening and you might have a problem with a lot of the girls killing themselves before arriving at the destination. So for some insane reason the sex traffickers put a picture of other nude trafficked girls wearing the same high heel shoes he forced Peyton List and Cameron Goodman’s characters to wear. So if Peyton List’s character ever gets out of that box alive she knows what she has to look forward to, stupid. Also, the girls in the photo were naked. When the sex traffickers were evaluating Peyton List and Cameron Goodman they told them to keep their underwear on, makes no sense. So the nudity in this movie sucks and neither Peyton List nor Cameron Goodman get completely naked. They do however, look super hot throughout and the acting is decent. The hardest part about it to watch is the fact that the bad guys are supposed to be experienced pros (been transporting precious cargo for five years) and the good guys are supposed to be intelligent (just out of college and back from vacation); yet both come across as the bumbling idiots of the movie Shuttle. As a matter of fact if Tony Curran’s character hadn’t come back to life and grabbed Peyton List out of the Shuttle at the end, she probably would have passed out and died next to her friend.
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