Never pick a fight with someone who's got nothing to lose.

Butterfly on a Wheel (AKA: Shattered) is directed by Mike Barker and written by William Morrissey. It stars Pierce Brosnan, Maria Bello and Gerard Butler. Music is by Robert Duncan and cinematography by Ashley Rowe.

Butler and Bello play a seemingly happily married couple who have an adorable young daughter into the fold. Enter a rather sinister Brosnan who announces he has kidnapped the daughter and requires the couple to do everything he asks. Pressure is on then!?

Basically this is just real solid kidnap thriller film making, the kind that we were well served with back in the 1980s, and with that in mind this comes off like a throw back to that decade. Brosnan (how nice to see him doing a natural Irish brogue) grows ever more spiteful, while of course our handsome couple get more frantic.

But naturally there's a mystery going on here, we are left in no doubt about that there is something lurking beyond the edges of the frames. To which the inevitable twist, on which the whole pic's very being depends upon, will either make or break how you ultimately feel about the piece as a whole.

I liked it. 7/10

While there's little doubt that Shattered does suffer from its share of problems - ie its characters' actions are often dictated by plot rather than logic - the film is nevertheless a fairly effective little thriller that's backed by a blistering pace and a trio of expectedly strong performances. Gerard Butler and Maria Bello star as Neil and Abby, a happily-married couple whose placid existence is brutally interrupted after a sadistic psychopath (Pierce Brosnan's Tom) kidnaps their young daughter. Though it first appears as though he simply wants money (and lots of it), Tom eventually reveals a far more sinister plan for the couple - as he forces the two to jump through a series of arduous, increasingly embarrassing hoops. Director Mike Barker's sporadically ostentatious stylistic choices aside, Shattered generally comes off as a slick effort that works best during its more overtly thrillerish sequences - with Brosnan's electrifying performance certainly playing a key role in the movie's success. There's a genuinely unexpected twist regarding his character's motivations late in the picture, though it's the inclusion of a subsequent twist that leaves the movie with an exceedingly sour aftertaste ("absurd" is too mild a word to adequately describe it). Still, as disappointing as its conclusion may be, Shattered is nevertheless a mindlessly fun piece of work that's a must for fans of the three actors.