Survive The Night

Thriller/Romance

Available from July 20

Starring: Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, Shea Buckner, Tyler Jon Olson, Lydia Hull, Jessica Abrams.

Upstanding medic Rich (Chad Michael Murray) is sued by relatives of a patient following an ill-judged procedure and he faces bankruptcy.

Accompanied by his despairing wife Jan (Lydia Hull) and daughter Riley (Riley Wolfe Rach), he transplants the family to his parents' home to start afresh at a local clinic.

Rich weathers criticism from his father Frank (Bruce Willis), a retired sheriff, but thankfully his mother Rachel (Jessica Abrams) is more sympathetic to his plight.

Late one night after a shift at the clinic, Rich returns home, unaware he is being followed by larcenous brothers Jamie (Shea Buckner) and Matthias (Tyler Jon Olson).

They break into the house and hold the family hostage to compel Rich to perform emergency surgery on a bullet wound.

"No killing," Matthias firmly tells his agitated, trigger-happy sibling. Then gun shots ring out.

Survive The Night is a lumbering home invasion thriller, which reunites director Matt

Eskandari with leading man Bruce Willis following last year's equally ho-hum Trauma Center.

Character development is perfunctory and the behaviour of family members under duress strains credibility: talking loudly and running upstairs when they know intruders are in the house, looking for a weapon of protection at the most inopportune moment.

Murray and Willis compete to see who can growl loudest, while Buckner imbues his desperate criminal with emotional depth.

Scriptwriter Doug Wolfe generates fleeting suspense.

A superfluous car chase across fields full of grazing cattle pads out the resolution but never accelerates through first gear.