3 Blind Mice Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES PLOT SUMMARY
Thomas (Edward Furlong) is a young computer specialist who spends most of his (spare ?) time on the net. He logs regularly on Cathy's site and apparently runs a very strong - but platonic! - relationship with her: they only see each other through webcams. One day, while Thomas is connected, Cathy is murdered under his eyes. But when he calls the police to try to "do something" he realizes that he doesn't even now her "real" name or adress.... Apparently the only witness, Thomas will soon find himself involved in the investigation held by Claire (Emilia Fox) a young police officer also web specialist. Together they will discover in the real world as well as in the virtual one, very weird things....
| Edward Furlong | Thomas Cross |
| Emilia Fox | Claire Bligh |
| Chiwetel Ejiofor | Mark Hayward |
| Sara Stewart | Thomas' Boss Chapman |
| Gary Connery | The Pizza Delivery Man |
| Elsa Zylberstein | Nathalie Cross |
| Valérie Decobert | Cathy |
| Ben Miles | Lindsey |
| Philip Whitchurch | Inspector Carlin |
| Peter Wight | Tomlinson |
| Craig Kelly | Frank Cross |
| Maria Pereira de Andrade | The Girl in Copenhagen |
| Martin Wenner | Jorn |
| Victoria Willing | The Mortuary Assistant |
| Hannah Eckersley | Storbest's Daughter |
| Mathias Ledoux |
4.20 out of 10 (482 votes)
Visitor Reviews
A hero-figure for the geeks of the world
posted on 19 Mar 20093 Blind Mice is only an update on Hitchcock's Rear Window in that the protagonists in both pictures are voyeurs who would be looked upon with distaste by most people if they existed outside of a movie screen. This movie, of course, is a pale imitation of Hitchcock's classic, but there is, at least, one aspect in which it outscores it – the character of its leading man is at least consistent with the nasty little habits he possesses. Thomas Cross, the 'hero' of this movie, is a sallow-faced, baggy-eyed, sartorially-challenged Billy-No-Mates: the kind of harmless lowlife who you could easily imagine passing his evenings – before the rise of the internet – furtively peering between the curtains of old women's bedrooms. Cross is played by Edward Furlong, who admirably makes no effort to elevate the character he plays above the somewhat necessarily seedy demeanour demanded by his role. Cross is a computer programmer with a thing for installing cameras about his workplace so that he can watch female colleagues adjusting their tights, etc. When he's not ogling the women he works with, he sits alone in front of his computer screen ogling a woman he doesn't know, courtesy of a web-cam site. One night, however, having sidestepped a firewall intended to block unwanted visitors, he witnesses the woman's grisly murder, and quickly finds himself the main suspect (he's in London and she's in Holland but what the hell…). Only comely policewoman Claire Bligh (Emilia Fox) believes he is innocent and, when she is taken off the case and it is closed unsolved, she enlists the help of Mark Hayward (Chiwetel Ejiofor), another (less nerdy) techie, and it is this trio that makes up the three blind mice of the title.There's an intriguing idea behind the story, but it's one that needs a surer hand than that of unknown director Mathias Ledoux, and a much larger budget to match its undeniable ambition. It does manage to avoid the problem of many movies in which computers play a large part, in that we aren't faced with interminable scenes of people tapping away on their keyboards with expressions that match the content of the message that their disembodied voices speak, but unfortunately, this flick doesn't have a lot more going for it. You get the impression it's supposed to be making some great statement about the intrusion of surveillance in the modern age (every other scene is viewed via CCTV, web-cam, fish-eye, rear-view mirror, etc – a device which grows increasingly irritating as the story unfolds) but what that statement is – other than the obvious 'Big Brother is Watching' one – escapes me. The story itself is confusing at best, and not a little mystifying; it hints at government involvement in the snuff site Cross has stumbled across, but fails to develop this part of the story sufficiently, and seems to discard it completely in favour of a rooftop shootout finale that falls terribly flat, and contains some terrible dialogue. Emilia Fox is fetching as the female cop, although it is impossible to believe that she would fall for the non-existent charms of a scrawny geek like Cross. There's absolutely no chemistry between the couple, which makes their eventual spot of rumpy – in front of the omnipresent web-cam, of course – both unbelievable and uninteresting. There's a fair amount of female nudity in the film, mostly via grainy web-cam images, and you can't help feeling it has been inserted to pander to the whims of the juvenile loner (who will probably never in their life get near to the real thing, and – at 14-17 years of age – already know it) at whom the movie seems to be aimed. Somehow, however, I can't picture even these forlorn figures believing that – yes! – they finally have a hero figure. Going back to the terrible dialogue, this movie gets my vote for the best unintentionally funny scene of 2003: having seen an intruder she has shot plummet from the window of her third-or-fourth floor flat window and land on a car below, the naked Miss fox leans out of the window and asks a passer-by, "is he dead?" "I don't know," replies our witless bystander, "he's moaning."
blindsided
posted on 16 Jun 2008This movie is a English/French co-production, with Edward Furlong in the leading role. Quite a departure from the happy singing rhino in Death to Smoochy, if you ask me, I hardly even recognize him and wasn't truly convinced it was him. Just kidding, that was Edward Norton. I always get them confused, for some reason. Maybe it's the "Edward" part. Maybe it's because they were in a movie together? (American History X). At any rate, this is a fairly muddled and confusing movie. It may take another viewing to determine some of what whizzed by but I would have to wonder if I could sit through it again? It has something to do with the discovery of an online snuff site, I guess not really a site but one that taps into people's sad little online sites where they have webcams set up so voyeurs can watch them make dinner and get their throats cut. It has oodles of computer mumbo-jumbo that may be fascinating only to people that dabble in firewalls, hacking, and voyeuristic web sites. On the plus side, it does possess a decent atmosphere, and some interesting soundtrack music as well. But unfortunately that's not enough to save it from itself. Throw in some corporate baddies that are either in cahoots with the government, the police, or maybe both (hard to tell) and it becomes just another cliché. I think this really had promise but it was just too dense (or maybe I was?) to get through. Things move speedily on down the line with no explanation for what's happening, characters aren't developed enough, and the viewer is left in the dust wondering what they just saw. Too bad.
Awful in any way
posted on 10 Jun 2008I actually really like Edward Furlong and most of his movies, but to be honest, this one is one of the most awful films I have ever seen.The camera work is so horrid that it makes you wish that you could hold the camera yourself because everybody could do a better job than that. The basic plot was promising but the script completely ruins it by jumping from one stupid mistake into the next (not only in relation to the simplest computer knowledge, but also to basic police investigation techniques and international law). The dialogues are mostly boring (except for when their lack of logic confuses you). The editing is just as bad, putting in scenes that neither make sense nor are of any actual use to the rest of the film.All in all, I deeply regret to have wasted 93 minutes of my life on this dreadful film. If you want Edward Furlong and computers, go and watch Brainscan, because that one, despite how surreal it is, has some actual potential to entertain you.
Excellent Fun
posted on 21 May 2008A very good, very suspensful and humerous film. The film show's what can happen in Cyber Crime when even though you are in a different country you can be a suspect.The film is excellent in the same way the other Edward Furlong Film Animal Factory is - you are waiting for a twist! Will one come????Get it out and see!
"Fear Dot Com" with an IQ
posted on 01 Feb 2008Alan Jones of "Shivers" magazine once called "Fear Dot Com" a "ring for retards". If that is true then "Three Blind Mice" is like "Fear Dot Com" with an IQ. Three Blind Mice is a patient film, and a thinking film. So in that right it seems more Asian than European. While European films are generally less plot with more visuals this film sort of goes in the other direction. It was released by First Look Films, the same people who brought us "Dahmer" (probably the best serial killer biography film made since "Henry"). The director in this film opts for a lot of "My Little Eye" type visuals toward the beginning and the end but they do not overpower the film the way they did in that movie. The plot is something you'll have to think about, which is refreshing for a contemporary European thriller and especially refreshing for the sort of trash that usually goes direct to video. This movie was the one that was supposed to jump start Edward Furlong's career (again) but since it has been released direct to video his film career will really hinge on the next Crow movie he's starring in with David Boreanaz, "The Crow: Wicked Prayer". All together this is one of the few thinking European movies that won't be remade, unlike "Insomnia", "The Vanishing" and "Nightwatch" because it bears too large a resemblance to "Fear Dot Com" and "8MM". But if you're renting it its a nice watch. It isn't the greatest watch but for a direct to video release it's pleasant surprise to see that this much thought was put into it. It's a much better film that "Fear Dot Com", which steals from "Kill Baby Kill", "Ringu" and its American counterpart "The Ring" (the whole nosebleed thing didn't happen in the original Japanese movie), and while the cast and ending aren't quite up to par the same way as "8MM" it's very unpredictable. With how early the first murder occurred caught me quite off guard. This may be what weighs the movie down for a lot of people, (something that really grabs you happens early on and nothing quite as visually or mentally engaging happens for quite a while after). But I was patient and, at least in a intellectual sense, it paid off. I do have a number of problems with the script though. Since we are only really hinted at a relationship between Furlong's character and the Cathy character the murder isn't quite as powerful as it could've been, and in for this reason the trailer which accompanies the feature on the DVD leaves you with a different impression of the story being than the film itself does. Even though the two main characters do touch upon the idea of a relationship between two people existing only physically though means of the internet during a conversation (and therefore not really physically at all) its never really touched upon again in the script. Though by the end of film we get to see the contrast of feeling between the type of people who do the watching (we see what other kinds of people watch these sites, though way of their emails to the Cathy character) and the sort of people being watched (though means of the story having the female lead set up her own voyeur site in order to catch the killer) and the more importantly the difference between the sorts of people who only watch and the sorts of people who actually know the people they're watching. Since neither "Fear Dot Com" or "8MM" really bother to touch upon these sort of relationships this film actually represents a screenwriter touching upon an original idea in the middle of writing his film (another reason this isn't bankable Hollywood material). I'm glad that for once a story about people's relationship with the internet actually has something to say. Fortunately the director's power over the camera doesn't slow down or stop the story from being told. When the time comes he takes a passive role here and just you watch the story develop, though his talent for knowing how to tell the story creatively come in handy toward the end of the story. Another problem American audiences might have with this movie is the ending. But you must realize that the screenwriter deciding to end the story the way he did allowed him to insert another one of these themes into the story, and therein allowing you to understand more about these characters and the screenwriter's point of view of the world.
An increasingly desperate thriller
posted on 28 Jan 200829 July 03"Three Blind Mice" leaves the viewer shattered, trying to make the picture come out differently. Edward Furlong and especially Emilia Fox might seem perfunctorily cast at first; by the time the film is halfway to its end they seem to have merged with their characters. Trapped between computers, highjacked television channels, and all all-stops-out reality show combining B & E, sex crimes, mutilation, and murder, their characters are caught up in a plot they keep trying to convince themselves they can control, knowing they have almost no chance. Fox, so quietly convincing in "The Pianist," here seems capable of going in any direction, and for that matter three directions at once, whiplashing the viewer from one perspective to another. The drama is under pressure--no actor dominates any other, there are no McGuffins, no cheats, no teases, just a momentum that builds so cruelly you may want to forget the film when it's over. Chances are you will have to see it again.
It was Cool
posted on 06 Oct 2007I sat down watching this movie thinking that it was going to be a bad computer film but now I admit that it was great Eddie Furlong did a wonderful proformance as Thomas and Emilia Fox was just as wonderful as Eddie.I would give it a 9 out of 10,it kept me guessing of whet was gonna happen next.So if your looking for a good computer flick I would suggest this movie.
A Big Disappointment
posted on 14 Jun 2007I was wondering what had become of Edward Furlong after his debut in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" and "Brainscan". Even "Pecker" was better made than this film. "Three Blind Mice" looks like it was made by the same people that made "The Blair Witch Project". The camera work was crappy; the audio work was crappy; and there was no music sound track until the end, except for some weird "Outer Limits" type music during a murder scene.I wish Edward Furlong had been in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines", because this film was very hard to watch. Even "Detroit: Rock City" was more entertaining than this one was! I give "Three Blind Mice" a very generous 3 out of 10 stars.
This is the pure definition of the word BAD!!!
posted on 21 Jan 2007I know this comment its a little late but i just saw the movie and some of the comments in here make me sick.....THIS IS THE WORST "COMPUTER RELATED" MOVIE i had ever seen.It has nothing to do with computers.NOTHING!!!Both the storyline and script of this movie is in a world of fantasy that has nothing to do with the internet or computers in general.Examples?...there are many: - wireless webcams that run on IMAGINARY battery power and connections;- DialUp speeds that are beyond broadband....;- Hacking skills that don't do squat (the open source on the file is pathetic);- The word Firewall is meaningless in this movie..has nothing to do whatsoever with reality etc...To put it simply this whole flic is pathetic...PATHETIC....and i don't even want to get started on the acting or the thriller like plot.... The movie doesn't even have a beginning and an end....its a mockery. It's worst than Hackers 1.....
Not a bad movie at all, but i can see how some would dislike it.
posted on 25 Oct 2006This film seems to be getting a lot of negative feedback. However, i quite liked it.My opinion may be different to the average movie viewer because i could follow the technical computer terms easily, and i am quite interested in the subject of computer/internet crime and use.I bought this DVD from a 'b grade' section at a very cheap price, after reading very little about it here..... so my expectations were very low. i usually don't buy movies, especially if i don't know anything about them.OK, the movie was a little confusing in some ways, like how the 'bad guys' were connected, and the overall crime being committed, but there was a lot about this which i liked. To begin with, they did not 'dumb down' the computer terms and actually showed a fairly realistic view of a person who's life revolves around internet.If you have seen the movie 'hackers', you see quite the opposite.As i said, i would be more interested in this movie than the average person, but i don't think it is too hard to follow. if you think this kind of movie would interest you, i would recommend checking it out.final score: 7 out of 10- andrew
Bad - The computer terminology was so offline it was scary
posted on 27 Jun 2006Somebody on one of their comments put that the computer/internet had not been dumbed down. As an I.T. Manager and consultant for many years I say the opposite.The bizarre java cross hatch screens. The dial up access at broadband speeds etc.. etc..Apart from that Edward Furling looked as if he was getting through each half hour by thinking about his next fix. He has turned in to a total junkie by the look of it.It was very poorly acted and directed. I think that some people might like this and give it 1 or maybe even two out of ten.. I don't think it's even worth that.
What a mess!
posted on 21 Jun 2006Edward Furlong must be the most unappealing, uncharismatic, unlikeable leading man EVER. If you found him annoying in Terminator 2, you'll be wanting to see him end up like the victims being murdered live on their own webcam sites in THREE BLIND MICE. Meanwhile Emilia Fox tries her best to swear convincingly but you still can't imagine her using even the mildest profanities in real life. If the performances and dialogue aren't bad enough, we get a central concept that has already been done much better in last year's MY LITTLE EYE, and a plot that whizzes by at 100 miles per hour but is totally uninvolving. Not the best advertisement for UK-France co-productions.
Too Rushed!
posted on 07 Sep 2004I was in my local video shop when i come across this film in a section of ill fated movies such as Bacherlor Man and 100 Dates. i read the back and thought that it sounded cool. I took the film home and settled down to watch a film that i was expecting to be a low budget American horror film. But what i ended up with was a cheap made for TV/straight to video, British thriller. This film lacked a quality that i expect from mystery horrors/thrillers. Edward Furlong's character was so boring and undeveloped that i was bored after the first act. He seemed to stroll through this film looking lost and confused and he looked to me as if he couldn't be bothered to even try. Emila Fox and Patrick Miles did not suit their roles as the Coppers, and Craig Kelly's faux American accent is the worst in recent history!!! it was so awful that i bet the director wished he had dubbed it later! The story was very promising on paper, but the way it was put on to the screen seemed as though they had rushed the project and used the script without any re-writes. The ending had promise, but then when i thought the film had ended alittle disappointingly, they tried to add an extra Big TWIST!!!. This was the worst Twist in living memory and i absoulutely feel angry that someone let the filmmakers put it in at the end! it was so irrelevent and so confusing. Twists work well if the film is good! Overall, this film was very rushed and underdeveloped! i never felt fully into the film That'll teach me to rent a film i find in the section with films i've never heard of. I now know why i had never heard of it. 2 / 10 - one point for a promising story and one point for being better that Gigli ( but only just!)
Edward is an excellent actor
posted on 14 Aug 2009Edward Furlong is not unappealing. He was not annoying in Terminator 2 either! He gave a convincing and emotional performance. Especially for a 13 year - old kid pulled from a Boys club in California with no acting experience at all! Take the ending for instance: When John Connor is trying to plead with the Terminator not to be terminated. He was very emotional and gave a captivating performance! And Ms. Fox is an ACTRESS. Which means she PRETENDS to be SOMEONE ELSE. Just because she doesn't use profanity in real life doesn't mean she can't pretend to!