All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

***SPOILERS*** Even before he got there to L.A things went wrong for young Seattle architect Walter Woods, Rob Lowe, in having been almost run off the road by an enraged truck driver-Tony Longo-for mot going fast enough in a 70MPH lane. Reporting Longo to his employer later has the well over 300 pound brute come to visit Walter to get him to change his mind so he can get his job back. There's also the man who's hiring Walter to build his "Shining Mansion on the Hill" Mr. Harrison, James Belushi, who never seems to be pleased with Walter's work yet still puts up with him for reasons we and Walter later find out have nothing at all to do with his skills as an architect! Things get even worse for Walter at the rooming house that he stays in with his next door neighbor Catherine Langtry, Alex Meneses, making a play for him and later ending up murdered with him ending up the #1 suspect in her murder! If things weren't bad enough for Walter his apartment is infested with cat size rats that soil his blueprints for Harrison's house and his the house manager William, Dean Stockwell, threaten to throw him and his blueprints out on the street! ***SPOILERS***It's after someone-wearing a leather zip mask- breaks into Walter's room and fractures his big toe that he finally calls the police blaming the truck driver-Mr. Longo-that he earlier reported in a a fender vendor accident as the culprit without a stitch of evidence for the incident that the real reason behind Walter's problems finally come to the surface. Which go back to Seattle in what has to do with Walter's wife Linda's, Dana Wheeler-Nicolson, life before she met and married him. Effective thriller that has Walter fight for his life broken toe and all and when it looked like curtains for him he suddenly ties all the loose ends together along with the crazed killer who was out to murder him!

What started out as a kind of who done it with Walter(Rob Lowe) getting a driver sacked for road rage eventually turns into pure farce. It never explained how his drawings ever got wet at the start. How would he not know the girl was murdered in the bed next to him, after all they only had one bottle of wine between them. With the killer exposed at the end what part did the ex-driver play in all this. Who put the rats in the apartment. Who broke the glass in the car door and if was innocent what was he doing in the apartment block towards the end of the film.The Apartment manager(Dean Stockwell) said he knew all the comings and goings of everyone in the apartments. He missed an awful lot of people

Poor Walter Woods (Rob Lowe) is having a horrible few days. He's almost run off the road by a truck driver. his hole in the wall apartment room has rats, his millionaire employer doesn't like his architect proposals, and there's a dead hooker in his bed among other things. Yup, Walter has seen better days, that's for sure. One of the writers, Patrik Ersgard, felt the need to act in the film as well and his character is pretty unbearable. But I guess he does fit in with the rest of the characters here, as the film practically reeks of awfulness. With the only tolerable one in the whole movie being Dean Stockwell, a man who should be above this kind of garbage.My Grade: D- Where I saw it: Showtime Extreme

I don't understand why is there so bad reviews. This movie thrilled me from begin to end. This is good written story, I usually suppose the end or the killer, but there was only in 50%. The civil acting of Rob Lowe is good, James Belushi played here an unusual role and funny is a part of Dean Stockwell as apartment manager. I think he enjoyed this part. Sometimes this movie is black comedy, but the end is quite brutal than previous parts of movie, I think it could be shorter (classic long final fight between bad/good boy).