The Loft

Rated 3.0

Five married pals (Karl Urban, James Marsden, Eric Stonestreet, Wentworth Miller, Matthias Schoenaerts) share a secret love nest to which only they have the keys; when a dead woman turns up there, they all claim not to know who she is or what happened. Who's the liar—or is there more than one of them? Director Erik Van Looy presides over an American remake of his successful 2008 Belgian thriller, with Wesley Strick adapting Bart De Pauw's original script. It makes an intriguing if far-fetched puzzle, releasing plot twists in little driblets, with a cold and rather repellent cast to the characters and action (Nicolas Karakatsanis provides suitable cinematography, dominated by blues and blacks). As so often in such locked-room whodunnits, the solution is both simple and complicated, and quite satisfying.