“Five Fingers” is a fast-paced thriller from Lionsgate that keeps you on edge with excitement – and virtually takes place all in a single room.
Dutch activist Martijn (Ryan Phillipe) travels to Morocco to help establish what he calls his “food program” accompanied by a bodyguard named Gavin (“Con Air’s” Colm Meaney). The two are immediately drugged and abducted on the bus by a group of Arab men and taken to an undisclosed locale. When they awake, Gavin is killed by the mysterious Ahmat (Lawrence Fishburne) who then begins a chess match with Martijn (both literally and figuratively) as he interrogates the captive Dutchman about the funding of his food program. Accusing Martijn of being a CIA operative, Ahmat begins to cut one finger off at a time in effort to reveal the truth.
The chess match elements are portrayed with an actual game of chess between Ahmat and Martijn and also relate to the movie itself in several facets; the story is jumps between the present situation and flashbacks of Martijn and his life leading up to the trip in a way similar to the back and forth game play of chess.
The mysterious motives and dialogue of each man is presented in a calculated and well thought pattern. The first person to be killed is the bodyguard, or pawn, Gavin. Martijn appears to be protecting his queen, or in this case his girlfriend Saadia (the beautiful Touriya Haoud), who may or may not be involved in dubious behavior. The obvious references to black and white like the pieces of a chess match; Ahmat vs Martijn. Even Martijn himself is a talented pianist – an instrument with black and white keys.
Ryan Phillipe looks exactly the same as he did when he broke onto stage in the ’90s, and sadly he acts just as poorly too. His accent is flawed and makes you question why they didn’t just cast an actual Dutchman – oh that’s right, because teenage girls spend money too.
As a whole the movie is just okay but its fantastic “Twilight Zone”-like twist of an ending saves it from being just average.
– By Matt Christopher
