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Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Let's be realistic.

Absolutely the worst movie.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The majority of Greek movies whose plot is mainly social, are bad. Extremely bad, to the point of boredom & depression. This is one of them.This movie is inspired by a hijack on a long-distance bus, that took place in North Greece in 1999, where an Albanian went mad, took hostages and went back to Albania, where the Albanian police shot him, along with a Greek passenger that resembled him.This could be an intense movie, but Giannaris preferred to rip-off some pieces of Speed, in a very bad way, adding to this mixture some very bad acting from the most actors and actresses, who sing like in a '50s Greek movie. Also, the death of the hijacker is one of the worst in cinema, ever made. The whole scene is hilariously bad.Don't watch it. Just don't.

Giannaris contributes one to the "hostage" film genre. I completely disagree with the other views expressed thus far, in that I found the film quite paced and engaging and his use of Stathis Papadopoulos as intuitively right. Describing him as "extremely buffed" is a bit hyperbolic. Stathis is no Arnold (thankfully) and can convey emotions missing from most action heroes/antiheroes--e.g., uncertainty, fear, and a childlike vulnerability next to the women who briefly mother him in the course of the film. Here's an inarticulate character who can't fully think things through, is in over his head, and yet desperate enough to make a last futile stand to be counted.And like all hostage films, it's not just about the captor but the captives. Kudos to the rest of the cast for their very believable performances that dynamically reveal their personal stories in the course of the journey and their changes in perspective on their collective situation and its significance. As one character says to the morally ambiguous cop-negotiator trying to get some of them released, "It's all of us or none of us." Kudos also to the cinematography that conveyed the overheated claustrophobia of a long bus ride that spans day and night and builds to its visual payoff in the climactic final moments.

Having previously enjoyed Constantinos Giannaris's 'From The Edge Of The City', flawed though it was, I imagined this film might represent a coming to fruition of this director's potential.Alas, this film fails on all fronts. Neither dramatic enough to constitute a drama nor thrilling enough to be considered a thriller, the pacing is lethargic and there's barely a soupçon of suspense throughout. Character development is limited, and, even where attempted, ultimately uninvolving. This is not helped by the director's tiresome insistence on casting Stathis Papadopoulos purely on the basis (it seems) that the actor is extremely buff. I don't know about you, but I often find it quite helpful if an actor can act.The depiction of the racism and xenophobia that lurks beneath the surface of contemporary Greece is perhaps the most interesting aspect of a film that offers no other message and little by way of entertainment.

I recently saw this film at a festival of Greek culture in London and unfortunately it had quite the opposite effect that the event intended, presenting modern Greece as a divided wasteland in a way that Giannaris seems to enjoy.As you can tell I'm not a fan of this man's work. Although most of his films demonstrate competence they never rise above their petty desire to appeal to the international market that Giannaris so obviously craves. To make matters worse he has insisted on casting his 'From the Edge of the City' boy-toy Stathis Papadopoulos in his recent films. The boy cannot act, and has about as much menace as a slightly cheesed-off male model. I think cinema has had enough of 'non-professional' casts being used as a means of supposedly adding 'realism' to a film. Drama schools exist for a reason.Ultimately, this film is a great disappointment. Especially considering the potential of the storyline.