Parents' Guide to The Price We Pay

This genre-switching thriller likely hopes to entertain with its increasingly over-the-top plot turns, but by the time it gets to the good stuff, you'll likely be too frustrated by the dumb stuff. Directed by the always-interesting Ryuhei Kitamura, The Price We Pay has a great, bleak, minimalist look and uses its spaces well. It takes its cues from Quentin Tarantino's screenplays Pulp Fiction and From Dusk Till Dawn, in which clashing characters find themselves up against a common enemy, who then reveals itself to be even worse than initially imagined. Unfortunately, The Price We Pay (what a generic title!) never finds a tone that's playful or clever enough to handle its bizarre twists. They come across as clumsy, even accidental. Plus, there are just too many instances in which the characters blunder needlessly into danger when staying put would have been smarter (although that would have made for a pretty dull movie). It's frankly difficult to forgive them, especially Alex, as played by Hirsch, who once again overacts to the point of smarminess.