If I have to find one good thing to say about David Guglielmo’s latest mystery thriller, Love Bomb, it has to be the fact that it makes you want to stick around and keep watching. That’s partly because the film unfolds through a series of unexpected revelations that let you in on the background of the mystery. But there’s also that factor that since you’ve spent about 10 minutes watching some very poor performances, you might as well stick around and finish the ride. And all of that makes for a fairly convoluted journey that I’m about to simplify for you.
Spoilers Ahead
What happens in the film?
It looks like a regular night at Anna and Josh’s place. Anna’s put a lot of effort into making the dinner that Josh is late for. When he does come home from work and opts for a “traffic was bad” as a lazy cop out for why he’s late, Anna’s just not having it. She’s certain that he’s having an affair. It doesn’t take much to get a confession out of Josh. He is, in fact, sleeping with his assistant. But instead of getting mad, Anna takes an unusual route and gets intimate with Josh in an attempt to fix their marriage. Sounds pretty normal as of now, right? Well, it isn’t so! In comes Tom, this Patrick Bateman knockoff who’s apparently Anna’s husband. He’s pretty furious at Josh for sleeping with his wife. Anna chloroforms Josh and hides him in a room, seemingly to help him. When Josh wakes up, he finds himself caught up in the sick games Tom has plAnnad to torture the man who’s slept with his wife. There’s mention of two other guys who’ve died by Tom’s hand for the same reason. So Josh’d better find a way out of this house that is on lockdown.
How did Josh get involved in this mess?
Josh wasn’t supposed to be in this situation. I mean, he had no idea that he’d land up in this situation when he got dumped by his girlfriend. No, he’s not Anna’s husband. Before the events of the first act, he was mourning the end of his relationship. His girlfriend, Tara, had left him for a rich guy. Josh couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that Tara had chosen someone who treated her terribly. Knowing how Josh was down in the dumps, his friend told him about the titular dating app. Apparently, Love Bomb isn’t a usual dating app. According to Josh’s friend, it’s a fetish app that offers cathartic experiences. Josh went for it. And as luck would have it, his first match was with Anna. They had this whole cheating husband and doting wife scenario all planned out. But Josh didn’t know that Tom was in on the roleplay. In the present, as Josh accidentally knocks himself out, making it easy for Anna and Tom to tie him up in a sex dungeon, I bet he is wishing he could go back in time to before he ever installed the cursed dating app.
What part was Tom playing?
Well, there’s a twist I bet nobody will see coming. When Josh is subjected to, uh, unthinkable torture in the sex dungeon, it looks like the only one flinching at the sight and sound of his pain is Tom. Anna seems to be fine hearing Josh scream bloody murder. And that’s because she’s the mastermind behind the entire setup, not Tom. Tom’s just an actor, and he’s been going through such a terrible time that he didn’t even get selected for a show about washed-up actors. It hurts him all the more because his wife left him for a more successful actor. Like Josh, Tom found out about Love Bomb from a friend. To Tom, it was just a little paid gig where he’d play a psycho husband and torture a guy. But Tom’s not a bad guy. He only came on board because Anna lied to him. Anna told Tom that Josh gets off on this. In the present, when Anna snatches the controls of the torture device away from Tom, he realizes that Josh doesn’t want this done to him. He reluctantly incapacitates Anna to save Josh and his business. But it’s not like they can make a run for it, right? They still don’t know the code to the security system that’s keeping the house locked. What’s worse? They can’t even call 911 because Anna seduced Tom and swiped his cellphone. And she’d already gotten hold of Josh’s phone when she snatched it while still role-playing the heartbroken wife, remember?
Does Anna die?
The final act is where Love Bomb is at its kookiest. On the one hand, you’ve got Josh and Tom kind of bonding over how they’ve been screwed over by women. Both Josh’s and Tom’s partners dumped them and traded up. On the other hand, there’s this woman who’s trapped these two guys and has been playing with them just for the kicks. What Josh and Tom don’t know when they overestimate their combined strength as two men is that Anna has been watching them and listening in on their conversation from the control room. Did you really think she wouldn’t have one of those? She even toys with Tom’s emotions when she tells him that she’ll text his little boy something awful from his phone. After all, tormenting these two guys is Anna’s primary agenda. Anna pulling a Daryl Dixon on them is probably not something they were expecting. But she’s way more ruthless than they’re hoping or expecting. Or at least, that’s what I gather from the arrow she shoots into Tom’s chest.
But who’s Anna? And why’s she doing this? Well, that’s where the last trip to the fairly recent past takes us. Anna’s not just a crazy person looking for men to have sex with and kill on Love Bomb. She’s the freaking CEO and leave out creator of the app. Judging by the dressing down her employee Jared gets for tabling his idea, I think Anna’s not too open to suggestions. Unlike Jared, who made the mistake of presuming that women will look for safe connections on their app, Anna wants her app to be free of restraints. It’s simply about what gets a person off. And what gets Anna off is killing men. The root of this violent kink happens to be a man in her past who hurt her terribly. He was her first kill. Getting to know all that as he’s about to die makes Josh think that he can speak to her reasonable side. But however on point he may be about Anna’s rage being a product of her pain, she’s set her mind to killing him.
In Love Bomb’s ending, when Tom rises from what we thought was his death and wounds Anna fatally, she still manages to kill Josh. Killing her was Tom’s last act. I’d say that he’s a success considering he has just saved countless other guys from falling into Anna’s trap. But Anna wasn’t completely devoid of goodness. She didn’t ruin Tom’s relationship with his son by sending that terrible text. She sent the kid a nice text from his dad. So Tom’s fear that his kid will think badly of him won’t come true.
