So What Happens AFTER You Push The Button

That is when the enthralling if not totally preposterous events begin to unfold in The Box.  A likable couple with a young son are approached by a creepy looking man with a device that contains a button that button that when pushed rewards the pusher one million dollars (tax-free).  The price: the death of a person whom you do not know.  It could be an innocent new born infant or a murderer on death row.  Arthur (James Marsden) and Norma (Cameron Diaz) Lewis certainly could use the million but are they willing to have “blood on their hands” after the button is pressed?  I think the movie would have been rather dull if they sat around discussing the moral conundrum and if they had simply refused it would have been a twenty minute show.

I’m sure I have read a short story or two in which this scenario is played out but this movie puts a whole new spin on the consequences.  What is purpose behind the box?  Who exactly is the mysterious man named Arlington Steward (played deliciously by the creepy Frank Langella)?  That’s as far as I go.  I do think the reason I liked it is the fact that it was so Twilight Zone-ish and was not for one moment boring.

This was a reunion of sorts for Langella and Marsden.  Langella played Perry While and Marsden played Richard White in Superman Returns.