This movie taught me another valuable lesson which I actually should have known already by now. Never ever trust the quotes and recommendations written on the front cover! The rental DVD of "Botched" loudly exclaims: If you loved "Severance" and "Shaun of the Dead", "Botched" is an absolute must-see! Well, I happened to like these two aforementioned movies quite a bit and yet I hugely regret having spent money and wasted precious time on "Botched". Unlike in the other titles, the comical aspects in this film totally don't work and the only truly positive thing I can say is that it has an apt title. Stephen Dorff, whose career never seems to stop sinking lower and lower, plays a small time crook who owes his mafia boss a free assignment after screwing up a previous jewelery theft. He and two others are sent to Russia in order to steal an antique cross out of the penthouse apartment of a gigantic building. However, the cross as well as the entire building belongs to the last living descendants of a bloodthirsty Russian Tsar and they don't exactly intend to give away their hereditary treasure. The murderous descendants keep the trio of burglars, as well as a handful of random hostages, trapped on the unused 13th floor and start killing them off one by one. Admittedly the basic conceptual idea namely resurrecting the Russian Tsar is quite imaginative and potentially interesting, but the film's elaboration is too damn hectic, pretentious and wannabe witty. I actually refuse to believe this movie won prices on festivals! The Russian stereotypes are miserable, the gags are painfully unfunny and the acting performances are below average. There are some neat bits of outrageous gore and splatter, but they honestly don't really suit the tone of the film, which is more of a heist/crime thriller.
