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Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The Blair Witch Project director's thriller about two paramedics Dave and Vic (Johnny Messner and Jon Huertas) who are kidnapped by a strange cult named the Quanta Group. Led by a reclusive mastermind called The Teacher (Daniel Benzali), the cult believes they have condensed the secrets of time and the universe into a mathematical formula which proves the world is about to come to an end. The cult has no intentions of letting Dave and Vic leave, so they have to fight for their lives while trying to escape the remote compound.The film touches interesting themes, such as the relation between God and science and the differing religious opinions of the two protagonists, but unfortunately doesn't really get anything very exciting out of the subject matter. The nature of cult membership is left unexplored, so the cultists never come across as very fascinating characters and we are left with a standard survival thriller. Even though the film avoids overt violence and instead attempts to create a feel of claustrophobia by setting the events in an underground compound and having the characters spend a significant part of the running time locked in toilet stalls, the atmosphere is nothing that hasn't been done much better in many other movies already. I would only recommend the movie to the biggest thriller fans and perhaps to those interested in mathematical mysticism.

I think Daniel Benzali is an interesting actor, but here he is totally wasted uttering nonsense. The film is extremely predictable and extremely dull. I mean two guys talking to each other across toilet stalls for minutes on end is not entertainment. The script seems padded to try and expand such weak material. Numerous lines appear to be repeated almost verbatim. This was a big disappointment. Even the ending seemed like it was tacked on for some kind of message, that somehow would justify the brainwashed cult. If you are looking for entertainment, I suggest you steer clear of "Believers". Not recommended. - MERK

Is that a weird freaky cultist being interviewed on the telly? Welcome to the world of Believers.It has to be said that this film isn't bad but… it isn't great either.After the early introduction of a TV interview the action moves to the County Fire Department, the fire chief telling one of our heroes, Victor, to, "eat his own lunch" – obviously a problem in this fire house. Acting at the beginning is of numerous types of wood. Fortunately Victor and Dave (two of the less wooden ones) get sent off to deal with a woman who fainted.I don't really know the structure of County Fire Departments in the US but do they really do ambulance work? Here they find a mother and daughter (the best actor in the film) the mother having tattoos that Victor notes "Never seen tattoo's like that before", possibly because they were drawn on with a marker.Then suddenly the evil garage owner has rung the cultists and they turn up and take them captive. Why the garage owner waited until now to contact them and why the cultists take them with them is unknown, but take them they do.We then enter the conversion phase where they try and convince them, indeed this is the main part of the movie.Oh I forgot Victor is shot. Not terminally.Dave makes some abysmally weak attempts to test the wire mesh and you wonder why he doesn't brace himself against the wall and kick it through. You also wonder why he doesn't use the cistern lid. (Carefully removed in the other cells).We go back to the girls mother who goes through full conversion while the cultists complain that her daughter shouldn't be here (erm… put her somewhere else).Then back to Dave, Victor a completely unconcerned Fire Chief, even though his men have been missing for ages and the obligatory Dave's wife ringing him to find out where he is shot. You wonder how long the emergency services are going to wait before reacting. I also thought emergency vehicles had tracers.Dave continues to fail to note he has a cistern lid to use as a weapon. Victor's strong faith seems to be put to the test with the merest nod of his history being revealed and the viewer is possibly left a bit perplexed by why they might be watching this.As the Chief comes to find his men the garage attendant uses a monkey wrench to disable the radio – which part of this cult of elite scientists did he belong to – and then takes out the chief who manages to miss a huge fire vehicle in a garage at point blank range for longer than any normal human.The big cheese finally talks to Dave and Victor to reveal Victor trained as a priest. Victor is alarmed and wonders how he knew as he has not told anyone. I assume the church keep records.On return to the cells Dave fails to use the cistern lid again and then tells them to stitch Victor's bullet wound – a puncture wound shouldn't be stitched.Victor then falls for the old conversion by sex routine (the girls mother and general titillation for some watching) and Dave finally after another pathetic attempt to break from his cell finally does what the audience wants and uses the cistern lid. Hooray.Rebecca (mother) sure fire conversion seems to be failing (possibly being used as a sex tool by these great minds) and I began to ask exactly why the cult needed her and her daughter back.However they make an escape, Dave and Libby (daughter) and drive the ambulance for what seems a few yards, driving onto a dirt track – why not stay on the road? – to find a view over the city. Again weren't they miles out and hard to find. The four wheel drive vehicle then gets stuck in dirt. Well they had to be captured somehow! The leader (called "Teacher") who initially said he couldn't see anyone due to infection is suddenly out amongst his people and tells Dave that they, "Don't kill" ending his rant with the fact that he'll "see he (Dave) is put to sleep." Vic's sexual exploits have obviously taken their toll as he is now in a wheelchair and has had the fastest tattoo (cult symbol on back of neck that represents their individualism in the universe – or it's just a Greek letter!) obviously that marker again.They escape, except Victor who can't break the conditioning – no wonder he failed as a priest. They had to really and social services leave Libby in Dave's care, because you would wouldn't you? The ending is good, I want to know which film they nicked the special effect from and all in all the films not bad.Music and direction are more than adequate but someone should have looked into the continuity and filed off all the sharp edges that didn't make sense.You're always limited by your budget and they used it well and the end product is enjoyable but by no means perfect.

I read a couple of reviews of this movie, which rubbished it entirely - dreary, dull, full of plot holes.For example - one reviewer kept harking back to the point - who called the paramedics - how ridiculous was this? But the film makes it clear that the daughter of the dying mother called the medics from the pay phone right next to her, which was later trashed by the garage guy to prevent any further calls being made. The fact that it wasn't spelled out in words of one syllable might have made it all too subtle for the reviewer (this was rottentomatoes, after all).Another one - everyone knew where the paramedics had gone, so why didn't they chase them up when they went missing? But the movie shows that they did - cops, and the paramedic chief (who gets bashed over the head for his trouble).Yet another - how could a cult like this survive without the authorities being interested? Isn't that exactly what happened at Jonestown? Not to mention Western Australia ( the Japanese cult whose name escapes me, but attempted to kill heaps of people on the subway) and various religious sects and cults around the world.Sure, it's a B-movie, but it had its saving graces. I was impressed that when Vic gets shot through the shoulder, clean wound or not, he doesn't just carry on as though nothing happened - he bleeds, he's in pain, he feels some disability. When his partner gets bashed over the head with a rifle butt, he doesn't just wake up and proceed to beat everyone up - he gets double vision, he has a splitting headache - much more realistic than in the bulk of other movies.The final twist was great. The film's morality was dubious, but it was thought-provoking - there was some interesting dialog regarding Vic's Catholic background ( a religion that spurns suicide as a sin) and shows how his background, in fact, makes him already a believer.I enjoyed this, much more than the next movie I watched (The Matador) which had good reviews but was, in fact, complete, totally amoral, rubbish.