The high-concept thriller is a seemingly dying breed. Gone are the days when we would see a thriller with a bare-bones premise and an A-list actor in the lead. Filmmaker Jason Buxton hopes to bring back those days with Sharp Corner, starring Ben Foster (Hell or High Water) and Cobie Smulders (The Avengers). While Foster is incredible here, the film itself is somewhat underwhelming, suffering from a bloated length and a lack of development for its themes and characters.

Sharp Corner follows a family man whose seemingly idyllic home life is thrown into disarray after a series of brutal car accidents occur on his property, leaving him obsessed with preventing the next death. This kind of bizarre, darkly comic thriller is all the rage these days – just look at the success of filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos – but Jason Buxton's second feature suffers from an inability to find its own distinct identity.

Like so many would-be "Hitchcockian" thrillers, Sharp Corner explores themes of obsession. However, these are ideas that have been explored much more effectively in the past. David Cronenberg's Crash comes to mind because of the plot similarities, but that film is much more provocative. Had the runtime been a bit tighter, this could probably have been much more effective, but as it is, it's weighed down by its familiarity./

Granted, the premise of Sharp Corner would have made a compelling 90-minute thriller and probably an even more engaging short, but when stretched to 110 minutes, it needs to have a little more meat on its bones to justify being so stretched out. While it will never leave the audience bored, the initial intrigue wears off rather quickly. When you add in an incredibly frustrating payoff (or lack thereof), it's hard to justify the film feeling so bloated.