Boring, long, and too preachy.

Absolutely brilliant

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

But unfortunately as things unravel, the movie loses its touch. There are quite a few good actors in it (Chiklis, Reed to name a few) and they're trying their best. For a low budget movie this is fairly well shot too. Of course it's almost entirely one location (with a few exceptions) and you'll either like that or not.For a low budget movie, it's always better to have a few, but interesting locations. So that's a positive side aspect, until you realize there could be more to it. The story, especially towards the end, loses its drive and motivation a bit and gets a little too tricky for its own good. Sometimes simpler is better, if well thought trough ...

Nick Davenport (Sean Faris) is released from prison for robbing a car and his wife Amanda (Nikki Reed) waits for Nick to bring him home. She tells that she is pregnant and leaves him at the Be Brite diner since Nick has scheduled an encounter with his brother Patrick Davenport (Jordan Belfi). When the police officer Will (Forest Whitaker) comes to the dinner, he notes that something is wrong and he goes to the toilet. He contacts Lieutenant Barnes (Marton Csokas) and tells that a heist is taking place before the scheduled hour. Then he sees Nick hidden in the room and he tells that he has called the police, and Will gives his name to Barnes. Out of the blue, Will is shot in the head and Nick is brought to the diner where there is a hostage situation. The British criminal Derrick (Michael Chiklis) and the gangsters Billy (Max Beesley) and Aaron (Jonathan Bennett) have stolen clients and a safe and Derrick has taken an HD from the safe. When the negotiator Jeff Porter (Common) arrives, Lieutenant Barnes tells him that Nick is responsible for the heist. Nick becomes a pawn in a deadly game where the award is an HD. What is the secret of the wanted HD?"Pawn" is a low-budget thriller better than I expected, with a non- chronological screenplay with many twists. Unfortunately, the rushed conclusion with happy-ending does not fit well to the story and I believe that it is lack of budget associated to commercial interests. My vote is six.Title (Brail): "Crimes Cruzados" ("Crossed Crimes")

It should be illegal for this "director' to ever get near a camera again. Chock full of stars, this 'thing' never gets off the ground. The erratic, haphazard cutting of the narrative makes this a complete mess to watch. The values are all over the place. I figure they had a pretty flat movie when they finished cutting it and figured 'what the hell?' might as well chop it up using a lot of elliptical cuts. The problem is that there has to be a reason - not just for the hell of it. Seeing the same scenes over and over again is just boring.It looked like it was shot on video. Really bad, horrible lighting; non existent production design; and no sound design. This needed a good music bed pretty badly! The performances were hampered by the lack of it. It's a shame since there is such a waste of fine talent. The story could have gone through a few more rewrites. A little too much needless exposition in the dialogue. If you go out and sit next to people you learn how they talk so you don't write lines like "I've made mistakes and I've paid for them." Oi vey! It's like someone coming over to your house and greets you by saying "I'm going to shake your hand and say hello."I could be wrong about this movie since it made a whopping $2,000 at the box office.

Just when i thought i've seen everything in the crime/thriller genre i ran into Pawn. With Ray Liotta and Forest Whittaker on board it promised at least a decent movie. Well, it was better than that.A robbery of a diner goes wrong and a villain (Michael Chiklis) and his crew are stuck in a hostage situation. However, this is where the plot actually starts. With several twists Pawn offered some unexpected and original solutions to the plot.This is not a masterpiece, yet offers good fun. The only complaint i have is about the abrupt ending. As if the producers decided to call it a day and push towards the happy ending.