Even if you were not already familiar with the basic structure of The Box, they reveal it to you in the trailer. A young couple (here played by James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) meets a stranger, who gives them a box with a button and tells them that if they push the button, someone they don't know dies and they get a million dollars. This tale, adapted from a Richard Matheson short story called "Button, Button," also became an episode of The Twilight Zone (albeit the 1980s version, not the original).

This is, I think, supposed to be some sort of difficult dilemma. What would you do for a million dollars? Would you push the button?

Well, no, because I am not a contract killer.

Let's look at this rationally, after the jump.

 

This is not a moral dilemma. Kill someone for pay. They die, you get money. You are a hit man/woman. This is not a complicated story. This is not a nuanced question. What would you do? Well, I would not kill the person for money, for the same reason that if you offered me a million dollars today to go run over someone with my car, I would not do it, because I do not work as a contract killer.

(Also because I don't have a car.)

"But it's someone you don't know!"

You know what? Even if I don't know you, I would still not kill you for money. I know — I am very generous that way.

"But no one would ever know!"

You know what else? Even if I don't know you and even if I were sure I would not get caught, I would still not kill you for money. You're welcome!

What is perplexing about this is that movies can be pretty good at actual moral dilemmas. The wildly underrated Gone Baby Gone has a great one. Actual quandaries are good plots. If this movie, however, is going to try to convince me that I should feel sorry for a nice couple from the '70s who can't decide whether killing someone for money is a good way out of their financial problems, I am not sure this is going to work.