Wire Room Review: Forgettable, Incoherent Film
Bruce Willis' illustrious career will come to an end with the release of Wire Room, yet his portrayal on the poster is at best a cameo. This clumsy thriller from director Matt Eskandari (his fourth and final failure with Willis) is predicated on a stale locked-room theme, with Kevin Dillon playing the central character mainly screaming and shouting narration to himself by himself in a server room. A disastrously awful first day at work reveals a plot by bad police who will do anything to get rid of witnesses and proof. A corrupt cop action drama with a low budget and straight-to-VHS production values is called Wire Room.
Dillon portrays Special Agent Justin Rosa, a recent transfer to the wire room for the Homeland Security Investigations' third shift. With all the manufactured solemnity of a class presentation that begins, "Webster's dictionary defines.," a title card outlines what exactly a "wire room" is. Before the title, there is a lengthy preview of the movie's climactic action sequence, in which Rosa and Agent Shane Mueller (Willis) battle waves of nameless SWAT personnel. The movie spoils its own conclusion at this point for no apparent reason, and things don't get any better after that.
A coincidence makes Rosa's first wire room shift interesting as his numerous security cameras focus on cartel member Eddie relaxing in his opulent mansion while he is utterly oblivious that the feds have over 40 cameras placed throughout. Mueller has been keeping an eye on Eddie for a very long time in the hopes of solving his last case before retiring. Eddie lives in luxury in a secluded area with three women and a small armoury. He is persuaded that Eddie uses dirt on corrupt police officers to protect himself, but Eddie has never shown himself to the cameras. Eddie's last stand, though, might occur tonight as a group of police officers in tactical gear approach his hiding place. Rosa defies procedure in the opening third of Wire Room and calls Eddie, telling him that his home has been bugged but possibly saving his life in the process.
The senselessness of the corrupt police officers is only underlined when observed through the multiple security cameras at Eddie's home. They enter and invade the dull sets of Wire Room like data-faceless armoured cannon fodder in a video game. The movie never explains how Eddie is repeatedly saved by Rosa's barely useful advice or what the villains' true intentions are after occupying a federal facility with lethal force in broad daylight. At one moment a hostage is seized, then mysteriously killed at the next. Eddie sneaks up on two attackers while posing as a corpse, but even after dragging the body behind them, they don't seem to notice they were fooled. In a stealth game, Dillon's character even uses a baseball to divert an enemy.