X (2011) Online

This was one of those movies where you aren't really sure what to expect when it starts, and it starts out with a sexual scene that introduces us to one of the main characters. I watched this with my boyfriend and we both agreed it was a surprisingly good movie, you really feel for the main characters, and it's a bit of a "heartwarming thriller".

I recommend this movie if you're looking for an action movie with heart, the first 30 minutes are a bit slow-paced and you might wonder what this movie is about, exactly. However once the main characters come together, the plot gets going and there are a lot of nicely filmed chase scenes and a few plot twists that keep the audience interested, both male and female.

Ladies, despite the cover and the subject matter, I think women will enjoy the strong sisterly bond between the two main characters and the warmth and caring in their relationship as much as the men will enjoy the action and ample amount of nude scenes in the film. It was definitely not what I expected it to be!

Holly (Viva Bianca) is a call girl who is in her last night job before she's going to quit and start a new life in France with her obsessive client.

Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence), a 17 year old who had a troubled childhood arrives in Sydney for her first night on the job. She faces the arduous nature of the job (having no money even to eat) - giving handjob to an old man, jealousy of other street hooker and pimps.

Holly and Shay cross paths for a job. When both of them witness a murder by a crooked cop, it turns out to be a cat and mouse chase with unexpected twists.

There's a lot of nudity and sexual acts - including Holly's opening lovemaking scene with a male prostitute before the rich middle aged women. Though one may get the idea even from the movie poster that this is an erotic movie, it is more apt to be tagged as a thriller than an erotica. None of erotic scenes are meant for us to enjoy it because the Director (Jon Hewitt) doesn't wants us to; instead he wants us to concentrate on the hard-hitting storyline.

There is commendable acting by every character involved in this thriller. And cinematography aids us to glue to our seat. This is an exploitation movie in line with Irreversible (2002) with ultra violence and sex abundantly thrown in.

Don't be beguiled by the low IMDb rating. This film has a lot more to offer than viewers seem to allow.

The tag-lines seem to give off a different vibe, making it more sensational; of course, this may be the reason why high expectations come out of the oven flopped. This film is NOT a "Night of Vengeance" - trust me when I say that the whole idea of "avenging" is completely bogus. If anything, it's more a story of two women living on polar-opposite sides of the spectrum, who try to survive and make a life by whatever means they have.

It details their life by a serendipitous encounter, a span of perhaps two-three nights, which builds into a climax. There is a thriller element, but it's not really the central issue. If anything, it's a side-factor which builds onto the story - onto THEIR story.

My advice is to have an open mind and absorb the story - it's not the mainstream plot development, although there is a definite construct evident in it.

Personally, I was more impressed by the cinematography and the editing. Everything felt freshly dynamic. The wild action scenes were cuttingly ragged and energetic, which was highly contrasted against the gorgeously delicate ones. I would give it an 8/10 for the aesthetics alone.

If I had to describe the film in one word, it would be "sensual." Everything about the film, from the audiovisuals (music, ambiance, colours, etc.) to the dialogue stimulates your senses.

Caution: there are a few scenes of explicit nudity and violence, and other provocative scenes which may feel distasteful to the prudent mind. To be frank, I think it lends the film an honesty which is hard to find in motion picture these days. However, if this sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, I would recommend against it.

I hope this helps.

• Spreaddapoo

I watched this movie on DVD thinking that it must be rather a complicated drama but the movie turned out to be better than my expectation. Even he reviews were less I thought of writing my own. The movie is basically on the life a small young age brunette who leave her house after her mother dies and get tangled in skin business. The writer and director has really tried hard to show the real life of whores who sell their skin for small bucks and still be competitors of each others. From start to end it holds the audience but the end is rather usual or depict-able. Perhaps it could have been made better. But as an overall I must say a worth watch! Give it a try!

The Plot: Holly Rowe's retiring, kissing her callgirl life goodbye.

She just has to get through her last night on the job.

Shay Ryan's a teenage runaway, broke and alone.

She just has to get through her first night as a hooker.

Then fate throws them together on a job that goes horribly wrong and they're trapped on an out-of-control roller coaster ride, through the twilight zone of sex-for-sale.

X is a sizzling adults-only thriller about love, chance, escape and the oldest profession experienced by two women, on a night that will change their lives forever.

This movie is silly. It's directed like one of those horrible sex flicks on cable TV late at night.

Also, it's not called X in the titles. The titles use the name "EXIT" as the title of the film. I guess they thought it was more titillating to call it X...

About the only thing I enjoyed was seeing the scenes of Sydney. Haven't been there in a long time....funny tho...I DO remember the hookers, but they were all trannies!!

In the end, there's nothing thrilling about this film. It's rather slow and boring to be frank.

Bianca (Holly) and Lawrence (Shay) turn in very decent acting turns as the jaded pro looking for her exit from the business and the naive, young girl from the sticks thrust onto the street, respectively. They make the most of a basically unbelievable plot that relies far too much on outrageous coincidence to move the story along.

Example One: Holly's controlling, abusive boyfriend just happens to pick her last night in town to suggest they leave it all behind, just happens to ask her where she'd go if she had no limits, and this supposedly streetwise pro who's leaving him behind just happens to be stupid enough to tell him precisely where she's headed.

Example Two: Holly's last trick before leaving is a dual job, needing a brunette, but her normal partner just happens to slip in the shower just before Holly shows up at her flat and is unconscious (dead?) when Holly arrives. Holly leaves and her cabbie just happens to nearly run down Shay, who just happens to be brunette, just happens to be a prostitute and just happens to be in town for her first night on the street.

And the most unbelievable part is that Holly is even considering turning the trick in the first place! A fellow pro gifts her with a wad of cash as a going away present in the previous scene and she's leaving in only a few hours, so that trick is wholly unnecessary ... but she takes it anyway.

Suspension of disbelief was nearly impossible for me with this script.

The movie is further hampered by the cartoonish supporting characters. The male antagonists are little more than brutes with suits, with Docker (Ligurian), Holly's erstwhile boyfriend, providing the emotional menace in the beginning and Phillips (Bennett) providing the physical menace for the latter half. Both are bad cops, but we never find out why, never get any context for their clearly violent natures, and are left with two dimensional caricatures to work with.

After witnessing Bennett senselessly off their john over a drug transaction that actually went well, the two women flee. With more unbelievable coincidences at his disposal, Bennett successfully tracks them down in a city of half a million people, and the latter half of the film is him chasing the women from scene to scene, ineffectually, while absorbing a truly unbelievable amount of punishment in the process. Just once I'd like to see someone get hit by a car and not walk away.

The rest of the cast seem to be there for one purpose only, to illustrate over and over precisely how naive Shay is. We see an awkward moment with a john, an awkward moment with a competitor and her pimp, a couple of awkward moments with a street kid who fleeces her, and an awkward moment with a couple of junkies. This is just plain old ham-fisted directing. Lawrence's facial expressions and body language told us that her character was a hick from the sticks in her first scene. The rest was just superfluous.

In the end, the film was enjoyable, however plasticine it ultimate turned out to be, but mostly because the female leads are stunning and spend at least part of the movie unclothed. The growing friendship is clearly the only deep part of the entire movie.

Synopsis? It's a moderately exciting thriller, with a couple of very decent actresses succeeding despite a bad script and some average directing.

One thing Australia does extremely well is making movies, it seems as though as the years go by the films coming out of my home country just get better and better. "X" has a cracking plot, a high class callgirl and a young naive streetwalker get caught up in a cat and mouse chase across the Sydney CBD and seedy kings cross red light district after they witness a murder, the night seems to get worse and worse for them as the film progresses. The filmmakers have done a terrific job with a film that so easily could have become a cheesy underbelly style thriller, there's a lot of characterization with the two girls which is a major plus in a film like this, usually it's all just gunshots and running.

The two lead actresses are mighty impressive, I have never seen them before but I was instantly interested in them and cared about the characters which is the work of a great actor, Viva Bianca, who by the looks of her IMDb resume has done a bit of Aussie TV should have a stellar film career ahead of her, she was nice to watch and has a very commanding screen presence, the younger gal, Hanna Mangan Lawrence is also excellent, she has a great knack for making the viewer want to just jump into the movie and steer her in the right direction, these two ladies are certainly two actresses that I will be looking out for in the future.

The use of seedy kings cross locations was great, it's always cool to watch an Aussie film and recognize the places that they were filmed. I hope when "X" gets a full cinema release that the Australian public see something intriguing and go to see it because it's a film that I think a lot if people would enjoy.

A fast paced thriller set in the sexual underbelly of Sydney is just what I was in the mood for when I watched this movie at SUFF, and it didn't disappoint in the slightest. Go see it people. :) oh yeah, and the naked guy at the beginning is such a hunk. :)

Do not watch this because of the cover. Or rather tone down the expectations you might have seeing that cover. You will be expecting more than you will actually get. Not that there isn't anything to see (that will remind you of that cover), but this is a thriller at heart and you should be looking forward to that aspect of the movie more than anything else.

The actors in this are good enough, the story is trivial, but not anything that will drag you down or make you feel too bad/uncomfortable watching. A nice little b-movie then, that might not be everyones cup of tea, but will please a target audience.

This movie is just perfect in it's own imperfect way, which I did not expect it to be...

The ending, or at least almost-ending, that is the 2 minutes before the actual last 2 minutes could have been thought out better, but it's not enough to draw down the grade, because everything leading up to that point was perfect... I gave it a 10, judged from the experience I had watching it only...

I only hope to see Viva Bianca again in similar strong role ... I had never heard of her before, but had to look her up, and was really surprised to see that she did not have any other real lead roles like this one... she should have ... I'm now a fan, strong women that reallyt stands out, but still emotionally touchy, and sexy as hell + authentic all the way = win, win!

Just wow! - Helio

We all remember Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) or Michael Haneke's Funny Games (1997) for example, well Jon Hewitt is following in large footsteps ...

He's made a short, sharp and edgy thriller that's as effective and engaging as his Red Ball (1999), which was set in the world of corrupt cops. He has retained some of those elements but the central characters are two women, a 30 year old call girl hoping to start a new life and a 17 year old out of towner also hoping to start a new life, they meet on the streets of Kings Cross where fate awaits them in a hotel room. Viva Bianca is vivacious as the blonde Holly Rowe, a proud and determined woman who knows how to handle herself after 15 years as a hooker. Hanna Mangan Lawrence plays the homeless and broke Shay, a vulnerable newcomer dazed and confused by what she's got herself into.

Characterisations are sufficient for the genre and the technicals are all excellent. Special mention to David Franzke and Byron Joel Scullin for the terrific sound & music scape. The screenplay links the story points with an authenticity that's satisfying and the thrills are well orchestrated, including a couple of street fights, a chase or two and some dramatic confrontations - as well as a surprise or two, It all comes together terrifically in a film that while blessed with more than a couple loose ends, still offers a stunning visual and emotional roller-coaster ride. It takes a while getting started and seems to follow a particular formula until—BANG! —a gunshot changes everything.

X is a mostly-satisfying genre thriller.

My RaTiNg- 7/10!!!

When you sit down to watch a film which doesn't shy away from the fact that it's basically nothing more than soft core porn, you'd be well credulous to expect anything approaching a decent screenplay, remotely believable dialogue or convincing acting. X doesn't provide any surprises here. What you may expect however, is an oversupply of nudity and some good old fashioned sex scenes that provided all those awkward moments watching 80s movies with your dad. If that's why you decided to watch this film, and let's be real, what other reason could there be, prep yourself for an 90 minutes of repeated disappointment. Now I may be completely wrong on this one, but I was under the impression that sex with a prostitute normally involves the lass taking her clothes off. Not so, for the working girls of this version of Sydney.

Yet somehow, this film was captivatingly watchable. I'll put it down to brave casting decisions - a blonde, early 20 something model acting as a Sydney cabbie, and the surprising invincibility of the villain cop who seemingly laughs off bashings to the head and getting run over at speed by a Holden.

Speaking of Holdens - Big ups to the special effects team, who managed to transform the single commodore from cop car, to cab, to second cop car and back to cab without anybody realizing it's the exact same car. Though you can't help wonder if some of the budget could have been diverted away from semi nude stripper extras, and toward maybe renting a hire car or two.

Overall, it's like watching a lesson in how not to make a movie.

Guys, seriously don't bother. The acting is not amazing, (except for Viva Bianca who probably the only thing that made this whole movie worthwhile) you don't understand why the characters behave the way they do. The storyline is blotchy, many things remain unexplained. SUPER unrealistic. The concept and the story seems great at first but too many of the pieces don't stick together. They manage to keep you interested and hooked because you're hoping somehow everything will fit into order eventually. NOT. The 2 out of those 3/10 is for the exquisite nudity of the actresses,but for the rest it's not worth it. BOTTOM LINE: If you enjoy being incredibly frustrated then go ahead and grab yourself some popcorn and get ready for this ride.

The moral of X seems to be that there is no hope, everyone is bad, you are going to get beat up or killed, you'll have to sell your body for a living, so you might as well disappear. A seventeen year old girl who runs away after her mother dies presumably from a heroin overdose, comes to the big city and by chance meets a high class call girl who is desperate to find a brunette to participate with her in a three way. The gig goes horribly wrong however, when a dirty cop shows up and for no explained reason whatsoever, kills the john and then pointlessly spends the rest of the movie hunting down and beating up the two hookers who witnessed it, even though they are less than likely to report him anyway. The call girl happens to be involved with another cop who wants to take her away from all of that, but of course she doesn't want to go, and the young girl meets a handsome and kind taxi driver / magician who wants to be her boyfriend, but of course she chooses to remain on the streets instead and give out hand jobs for fifty dollars a pop. Nothing in the film X makes any sense and there really isn't any plot other than a crazy cop repeatedly catching the girls, beating them up only to have them escape on him again. The sex scenes aren't sexy. All the men save for the taxi driver are disgusting. X didn't invoke a single emotion in me (unless feeling depressed or feeling hopelessness are considered emotions) but it sure made me yawn. Maybe there should be a warning on the label of the video that it may inspire suicide.

Sydney's Kings Cross is the backdrop in this solid production with Jon Hewitt as its director and main writer. Viva Bianca and Hanna Mangan Lawrence act as the main characters in this revealing tale. However, the nudity is not out of place since the red light district is the film's basic setting.

Surviving almost 15 years of escort interaction, Holly (Viva Bianca) is almost 30 years old and solves her complications with well directed kicks and punches. On the other hand, being 17 years old and new to Sydney, Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) has not adapted to her new environment with its strip clubs and drugs. Frequent close-ups and lots of bare skin of beautiful Viva Bianca increases the audience's compassion for her character, and her performance as the tough and resilient Holly is memorable. Hanna Mangan Lawrence's character is vulnerable and in constant danger, but together with Jon Hewitts repeated use of close-ups she manages to get into the audience's hearts. She is definitely an actress we are looking forward to seeing in the future.

Lastly, costume designer Vanessa Loh has also done a great job in this awesome thriller.

X (Night of Vengeance) will get you blood pumping. All along the ride you will want the two girls to get out of it clean, but trouble will hound them mercilessly.

It's gritty, it's dirty, it's sexy, it's not what you want to happen when on the job. You get to see the two very different sides of a single coin. You'll enjoy, because you'll get to understand some things, and imagine many others. It will grip you and it won't let you go until it is finished with you.

A few things are off with this movie. Sometimes, you want a tighter scenario, editing, a more experienced camera work, or more fine tuning on the dialogs, but it's easily forgivable.

Watch it only if you're ready for suspense and a good dose of the underground.

...because the main problem with this movie is the plot.It is bad and just a big mess.The acting is below average grade but the nudity is OK.The sex scenes are not exiting but rather boring.

The film started well but as the minutes passed,i wanted to press the fast forward button because I was bored.

By all means,this is not the worst movie i have ever seen.But with actor like Viva Bianca and director Jon Hewitt i had expected something better. This movie reminds me of Dane Giraud's "Luella Miller from 2005 in a way.

There are probably many others who disagree with me but in my view,this film is not even worth the rental time.There are so many other good movies in this category.I can mention Djo Munga's Viva Riva,Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm and Giuseppe Tornatore's The Unknown Woman(La Sconosciuta).

masquerading as art. This is an okay film. It's nothing great. It's not bad either. There are a few truly beautiful Women in it. Hanna Mangan Lawrence, 19 at the time of filming, shines as the doe eyed country girl, wandering the seedy Australian underbelly found in Sydney's red light districts, like a little lost Bambi. The cliché Babe in the Woods routine, take one.

Here the Woods are filled with hookers, Black pimps, drug addicts, assorted scumbags, low lives and the obligatory lecherous old man to satisfy the feminists pretending not to enjoy all the revealing Female flesh on show.

Hanna Mangan Lawrence does well with a screenplay that is skinnier than Calista Flockhart's chop sticks. The fact that she was directed to be doe eyed throughout the entire film (no character arc to be seen here folks!) does not of course explain why, immediately upon arrival, she is simultaneously savvy enough to start selling her body with the compunction of a seasoned pro. I guess even Bambi had to grow up some time. Of course she is likewise not savvy enough to prevent herself from staying away from trouble. Maybe stay off the streets wasn't in her vocabulary, but then again if she had, the water thin plot would have dissipated quicker than one of Barry Humphrey's farts.

Predictable drama ensues until our doe eyed princess is rescued by her prince charming in the form of a likewise doe eyed taxi driver with a heart of gold. Aw how cute. Average film. Nice flesh. Not crap and not great. Just Meh.

30-ish Holly is looking to get out of prostitution: she has a menacing boyfriend. 17 year old Shay is starting out as a prostitute but isn't really suited to it. They end up in a threesome with a client who is killed by a bent cop, following which they end up on the run.

There are some good things about this Australian film, Holly and Shay are played by Hanna Mangan Lawrence and the exotically named Viva Bianca(both from the Spartacus TV series) and both young ladies are a) very attractive and b) scantily clad (or less) from time to time. And the thing is directed with a sense of style: what appears on screen has clearly had some thought given to it.

Unfortunately, it is very slow to get going, founded on coincidence and improbability, and the action frequently slows to a dead stop. Despite tolerable performances, I didn't believe it for an instant, and I was frequently bored.

If your foray into Australian dramas is Neighbours or Home and away or film production is limited to Crocodile Dundee then this gritty, erotic thriller set in the seedy part of Sydney will blow your preconceptions away.

Holly (Viva Bianca) is a veteran high class call girl on her last night before moving to Paris. Shay (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) is a runaway to Sydney and its her first night on the streets. She already has been involved in a road accident while performing a trick on a client and beaten up by a rival hooker's pimp.

Holly recruits Shay for a threesome with a client in a hotel room but they end up witnessing a killing and end up being on the run as the killer pursues them and he is not man who is prepared to stay down even if he is run over by a car.

This is a low budget urban thriller in the seamy side of life. It starts of as erotica where we see Holly having sex with a naked man in a room full of women and the director makes sure that there is regular female nudity as the film goes along.

The film may not have too much of a plot and I guess with a director like Paul Verhoeven and a bigger budget this film would be an intriguing erotic thriller but its good to see a grittier side of Australian cinema.

Surprising,This was filmed in Calgary. A bit slow at first, great ending! A little unrealistic that she is a call girl and she has a cop in her back pocket trying to runaway with her. But I still loved it.

The only complaint I have is the way it ended.I hope there will be a sequel considering the way it ends with the two of them on the beach. Let's say he make her disappear and the sequel continues with her. Does she get off the streets?n Does she move and open her who agency and become a madame? What does she do with that suitcase filled with diamonds? Does he turn out to be a huge jerk and steal them from her.. SO many questions left unanswered!!

An Australian plunge into the worlds of prostitution and police corruption, X isn't nearly as erotic as you might think because co-writer/director Jon Hewitt shies away from sensationalizing the subject matter. Oh, there's a good bit of nudity, some sex scenes and violence, but most of that stuff is either de-romanticized or Hewitt deliberately tries to play down its prurient appeal. In the most straight forward sex scene in the film, the only nudity is a couple of ganders at a flaccid male member. Not the most titillating of images by anyone's standard. And the violence is of the sudden kind that actually looks like it hurts. Hewitt undeniably wanted to make the least arousing flick he could. He largely succeeded, but the lack of distraction only makes the weaknesses in his story easier to see. Still, he's got three pretty strong performances and a story that throws a few unpredictable turns at the audience. That's not nothing.

Holly (Viva Blanca) is a well-practiced call girl who's decided she's leaving the business to remake herself in Paris. She's going abandon everything from her old life, especially her creepily intense client/boyfriend Michael (Peter Docker). But on her last night before departing, she takes a job for a threesome at a hotel. All of her usual partners are indisposed, so Holly turns to a young girl she literally runs into on the street. Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence) is a 17 year old girl fresh in the city from an unhappy family life and has just gotten a taste of the degradation of handjobbing old men in cars for money and the dangers of existence on the street. Holly needs the help. Shay needs the money. So they sex up this guy, only to then witness his murder. On the run from the killer, Holly and Shay are forced to use every resource they have to stay alive and hope doing so doesn't ruin their chances of having that life be better than it currently is.

Though the plot of X depends on a few coincidences, it's fairly solid and involving. The acting of Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Peter Docker and Stephen Phillips as the killer is affecting. Lawrence creates a center of neediness in Shay that she nevertheless puts to use by trying to manipulate people through her own weakness. Docker is believably off kilter and Phillips lets the passions of his character spill over everything he does. It's harder to judge the work of Viva Blanca. She's playing a jaded, hardened woman who isn't naturally sympathetic, but I'm not sure if the emotional indifference felt toward Holly is intentional or the result of poor acting. Holly isn't unlikable. She's like a beautiful handbag that's a cheap knock off so you don't care if you lose it.

The major obstacle to X being a good film is that the last half of it hangs entirely on the threat of the killer who's after Holly and Shay. The first time he catches up to Holly, however, she beats the snot out of him. I don't mean she tricks him or surprises him or takes advantage of some fluke circumstance. Holly punches the killer in the throat, kicks him while he's down and then beats him senseless with her carry on luggage. It's kind of hard to take the killer seriously as a menace after that. I know it's all feminist and "grrl power" and stuff for Holly to be able to physically defend herself. In this sort of story, though, that lessens the danger she faces. If she can kick the guy's ass, why does she need to flee from him in fear? And when, later on, the killer and Michael comes to blows, what is the viewer supposed to think when Michael puts up a worse showing than Holly?

X isn't a bad motion picture. It simply isn't smartly written enough to stand being an non-exploitative as it is. It needed to be a little trashier, a little sexier, to be good. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Well well well , i had a couple of choices of movies to watch tonight , and i wanted something different .This is an Australian production. So i decided to pick this movie and watch it . First of all it got the actress Viva Bianca .So if anyone has seen the HBO TV series "Spartacus" , you'd recognize her from there . Without going into too much detail , the plot is about too call-girls(hookers) who meet , by chance(fate) and then they see something which ends up making them go on a roller coaster ride .

For me i enjoyed it , but not thoroughly . Its one of those movie which you are bound to forget soon enough . The acting was alright , and the story it could have been done in a much better way . There was more running around than story telling . However if it wasn't for Viva bianca id probably wouldn't find it so entertaining . The film had a lot of nudity , but not enough of violence or abusive language which normally helps .It started of well , then somewhere in the middle it got lost and the ending came a bit too quick as if the movie was hurried . Overall , id give it a 5 out of 10

Start of the movie look promising with a bit of suspense until halfway through when the "cop" shot his business partner. From then onwards, it was downhill as good actors try their very best to play roles that were just not fitting the storyline of the film. Could have been better if the "cop" didn't know one of the ladies and had to do some real investigative work to uncover them but it wasn't to be and that spoiled the movie in the end. Knowing one of the ladies ended the film for me, because it meant there was nothing else to happen. Nevertheless, it wasn't bad for a budget film but could have been better with a bit of research on intriguing scenes. The actors in my view were all great just the story line let them down.

Retiring call girl Holly (Viva Bianca) has to get through one last night on the job. Another girl who was supposed to join her for a threesome with a client is a no-show, so she has to find a replacement. Enter Shay (Hanna Mangan Lawrence), a runaway teenager on her first night as a prostitute. Holly picks her up and takes her to the job. But things go horribly wrong and soon the girls are running for their lives.

This was an OK movie, if somewhat predictable. I would never have tried it if it didn't star the lovely and talented Viva Bianca. She's quite good in it. So is Hanna Lawrence. There is a sense of familiarity over the plot. Also, lots of contrived things happen in order to ramp up suspense. That might irritate some viewers. Ultimately, it's a watchable thriller with some sexy parts. Viva Bianca fans will definitely want to check it out.

"X: Night of Vengeance" is about two prostitutes, Holly Rowe (Viva Bianca) and Shay Ryan (Hanna Manhan Lawrence), who inadvertently put their lives in dangers when they witness their client being shot by a cop. What follows is a series of chases throughout the criminal underworld.

This film does have its moments. In the beginning, there is an effective scene with Shay in a bathroom with blue lighting. That scene was probably meant to underscore the vulnerability of a poverty-stricken prostitute in a hostile underworld where women are dehumanized to the point where they become pieces of meat. Another great moment, at the beginning, has the camera linger upon Viva Bianca's Holly so that we ask ourselves what she is thinking and feeling.

Yet, on the other hand, the scenes of prostitution, violence, and drug use are so aggressively unpleasant that they have the effect of pushing you away rather than trying to involve you in the lives of their characters. Watching "X" was truly a depressing and sometimes boring experience, because there is nothing redeemable about this picture. "X" did not need a happy ending, but it did require compelling human stories to fill the void created by the emptiness and coldness of its underworld environment. This film's failings demonstrate the difference between great films, like the "Exorcist," "Hotel Rwanda," and "The Last King of Scotland," and sub-par horror films like Salo, Friday 13th series, and Hostel. All these films depict horrific subject matter, but some of them have characters with great depth and humanity. As a result, we are willing to stay with these characters on their harrowing journey, even when their lives are a living hell. When compelling human stories such as these are absent from a movie, all that is left is the violence, the blood, and the drug use. Some people like these things for their own sake, but for me a film has to be a lot more than just its aggressively unpleasant subject matter.