Shattered (2022) Review – A Pointless and Thrill-Free Slog

Welcome to Knockout Horror and to our review of thriller movie Shattered from 2022. To be honest, I am not really sure why I am even covering this movie today. For one, it isn’t a horror, it’s a thriller. For two, it’s already two years old and, for three, it is pretty awful.

Basic thrill-less thriller

The story follows mega-rich divorcee Chris (Cameron Monaghan) as he embarks on a new relationship with the former model Sky (Lilly Krug). Chris made his fortune by creating a home security app that was purchased by Google Play. Now retired, he spends his days mulling about his massive house drinking wine and listening to classical music.

“This is your basic ‘bunny boiler’, ‘bad girl does bad things’ thriller movie with absolutely nothing to write home about.”

That’s about to change as a chance meeting at the local wine store introduces him to a woman with a dark secret. 

Shattered features a pretty basic thriller setup. Dude gets divorced, has Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth, girl hits on him at the store and things all go downhill from there. There’s nothing exceptional about the plot and nothing all that interesting about the characters. This is your basic “bunny boiler”, “bad girl does bad things” thriller movie with absolutely nothing to write home about.

An incapable protagonist

Well, that’s if you discount the absolutely horrendous, almost AI generated, dialogue, the terrible, wooden, acting and the thousands of leaps of logic the viewer is forced to take to buy into the plot. The entire motivation behind the antagonist’s actions in Shattered will have you raising an eyebrow immediately. That’s if the stupidity of Chris hasn’t made you do that already.

“He is a thoroughly incapable protagonist who consistently manages to make his situation worse and worse. It’s actually something of a relief that he is so ludicrously stupid.”

It all just makes no sense and neither does Chris’s reactions to what takes place. He is a thoroughly incapable protagonist who consistently manages to make his situation worse and worse. It’s actually something of a relief that he is so ludicrously stupid, though. As it would be almost impossible to buy into the scenario otherwise.

The antagonist here is completely non-threatening and Chris has a multitude of opportunities to fight back and completely fails each and every time. He is frustratingly useless at pretty much everything. It’s like if Clark Griswold, from National Lampoon’s Vacation, was the star of a thriller movie. Bumbling ineptitude at each and every turn.

Continuity issues and logic leaps

The things with Chris are only part of the problem. There are a ton of continuity issues here, bags of logic leaps that go far beyond being simply unbelievable, and a number of ridiculous twists and turns. Nothing makes a lot of sense and nothing really adds up. Thrillers are somewhat notorious for doing this but Shattered takes it to a new level.

The crazy thing is, for a moment there this is a pretty gorgeous looking movie with some fairly high production values. Juanmi Azpiroz’s cinematography is simply sensational for the first quarter of the movie and pulls you right in. You almost get the feeling that the movie might be quite well made. It’s only when we hear our first conversation between Chris and Sky that we realise that the nice cinematography and high production values are a false dawn. 

A terrible script and poor acting

The script is laughable and clearly not written by a native English speaker. The writer is listed as David Loughery but I can only imagine that is just the story and not the screenplay. Compounding that issue is the fact that both Lilly Krug and Sasha Luss are, evidently, non-Americans using American accents.

Krug’s accent slips constantly and it is highly jarring. It greatly impacts her performance which is something of a shame as she is clearly having fun, at times. Honestly, I can understand the casting but when you compare her to someone like Gracie Gillam in Superhost you really see how poorly suited she is to this role. 

“The script is laughable and clearly not written by a native English speaker… the nice cinematography and high production values are a false dawn.”

John Malkovich is here for a little and that just really marks the incredible drop off his career suffered in the last 15 years. He’s now just one of those actors that pimps himself out to any movie for the right amount of money. Very reminiscent of Michael Madsen’s performance in The Lurking Fear.

Cameron Monaghan is okay, I suppose. He manages to get invested in the role in a few parts if invested means crying with a lot of snot and spit covering his face. But he just comes across so wooden and awkward for much of the movie.

I’m really trying to reach for some good points here. As mentioned above, Krug seems to be having fun so. She is no stranger to skimpy outfits which is a plus point for some, I guess. There is a lot of random noisy smooching and poorly lit sex so that might be a bonus for some people. The whole thing feels a bit smutty and farcical to be honest so maybe 50 Shades fans will enjoy it? Other than that, there is nothing to recommend. 

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