D: Joe Johnston / 74m

Cast: Max Minghella, JJ Feild, Eloise Mumford, Christian Clemenson, Tom Gallop, Molly Hagan

Tom Miller (Minghella) is a junior lawyer at the firm of Rosen, Byres and Emmerich.  In his attempts to get ahead he manages to antagonise one of the firm’s senior partners, and is fired.  As he leaves the building along with everyone else, he sees an exchange of briefcases that raises his suspicions.  He goes back up to where RB&E have their offices, and sees the man (Feild) who took the briefcase tampering with some of the electrics for that floor.  When the man is disturbed by Janine (Hagan), an RB&E employee, he cold-bloodedly shoots her.

Tom tries to raise the alarm but the telephones are dead and his mobile phone signal is blocked.  With only Roger (Gallop), an ex-colleague, and Emmerich (Clemenson), the partner who fired him, still working in the offices, Tom tries to stay one step ahead as he tries to figure out why the man is there.  With two high profile cases about to go to court, Tom has to find out which one the man is there to hinder, and who sent him.  A cat and mouse game develops when the man discovers Tom’s presence, a game that leads to further danger when the man tricks Anna (Mumford) (one of the firm’s secretaries and Tom’s secret girlfriend) into returning to the building.  Tom has to find a way of keep Anna safe from harm, while foiling the man and his attempt to set off an incendiary device in the firm’s file room.

Filmed in 2012 but only now gaining an audience, Not Safe for Work is a tepid, low budget thriller that hides a plethora of plot holes beneath its glossy surface, and emerges as a solid, if slightly pretentious thriller that coasts along on the back of its own improbability.  It’s a movie that’s hard to dislike despite its faults, and while Johnston does his best to create tension and a modicum of thrills, he’s powerless to overcome the ludicrous nature of Adam Mason and Simon  Boyes’ script, which plays like a first draft that was never rewritten.

Minghella is an unlikely hero, while Feild aims for urbane hitman, but misses the target by a mile, creating an arch, self-conscious performance that invites hilarity even more than it does menace.  With a twist that – of course – can be seen coming from as far off as Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), in the end, the movie works hard at what it does, but winds up being largely unremarkable.

Rating: 4/10 – there’s a neat premise at the heart of Not Safe for Work, but it’s one that’s buried beneath layers of unnecessary artifice; the brief running time is a bonus, though.