In 2021’s The Elevator, Eric Roberts plays Roman Juniper, who is married and who has three kids but who also has a demanding job in a downtown office building.  Even though it’s both the weekend and his youngest daughter’s birthday, Roman still has to go into work for a few hours.  Unfortunately, just as Roman is looking forward to heading home and celebrating with his family, there’s an electrical short in the building and Roman finds himself trapped in the elevator!

His family starts to wonder where he is and, in another unfortunate coincidence, he is initially misidentified as having been involved in a freak accident that occurred outside of his building.  His family fears that Roman is dead but will they ever discover that he’s actually tapped in a dark elevator, where he’s yelling and losing his mind?

In many ways, this film is the ultimate latter day Eric Roberts movie.  Roberts is actually the lead in this movie.  The film centers around his character and, even when he’s not on-screen, everyone is talking about him.  For once, this is not a film where Roberts just shows up in some throw-away role and lends the production a few minutes of Eric Roberts star power.  The Elevator is a legitimate Eric Roberts films.  And yet, because of the film’s plot, Roberts still spends the majority of his screentime on only one set and, for the most part, he doesn’t really interact with the rest of the cast.  Everyone else is out looking for him but Eric Roberts is alone on that elevator.  He’s acting up a storm and Eric Roberts is always at his best when he’s playing an emotional character but it’s difficult not to notice that he was probably able to shoot his entire role in just a day or two.  You have to respect a man who can star in a movie and still manage to get it all done in just a handful of hours.

Eric Roberts is, not surprisingly, the main reason to see The Elevator.  The film itself is poorly paced and cheap-looking.  But Eric Roberts is always fun to watch.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

1. Star 80 (1983)
2. Blood Red (1989)
3. The Ambulance (1990)
4. The Lost Capone (1990)
5. Love, Cheat, & Steal (1993)
6. Voyage (1993)
7. Love Is A Gun (1994)
8. Sensation (1994)
9. Dark Angel (1996)
10. Doctor Who (1996)
11. Most Wanted (1997)
12. Mercy Streets (2000)
13. Wolves of Wall Street (2002)
14. Mr. Brightside (2004)
15. Six: The Mark Unleased (2004)
16. Hey You (2006)
17. In The Blink of an Eye (2009)
18. Enemies Among Us (2010)
19. The Expendables (2010) 
20. Sharktopus (2010)
21. The Dead Want Women (2012)
22. Deadline (2012)
23. The Mark (2012)
24. Miss Atomic Bomb (2012)
25. Bonnie And Clyde: Justified (2013)
26. Lovelace (2013)
27. The Mark: Redemption (2013)
28. Self-Storage (2013)
29. This Is Our Time (2013)
30. Inherent Vice (2014)
31. Road to the Open (2014)
32. Rumors of War (2014)
33. Amityville Death House (2015)
34. A Fatal Obsession (2015)
35. Stalked By My Doctor (2015)
36. Enemy Within (2016)
37. Joker’s Poltergeist (2016)
38. Prayer Never Fails (2016)
39. Stalked By My Doctor: The Return (2016)
40. The Wrong Roommate (2016)
41. Dark Image (2017)
42. Black Wake (2018)
43. Stalked By My Doctor: Patient’s Revenge (2018)
44. Clinton Island (2019)
45. Monster Island (2019)
46. The Savant (2019)
47. Seven Deadly Sins (2019)
48. Stalked By My Doctor: A Sleepwalker’s Nightmare (2019)
49. The Wrong Mommy (2019)
50. Exodus of a Prodigal Son (2020)
51. Free Lunch Express (2020)
52. Her Deadly Groom (2020)
53. Top Gunner (2020)
54. Deadly Nightshade (2021)
55. Just What The Doctor Ordered (2021)
56. Killer Advice (2021)
57. The Poltergeist Diaries (2021)
58. The Rebels of PT-218 (2021)
59. A Town Called Parable (2021)
60. Bleach (2022)
61. My Dinner With Eric (2022)
62. Aftermath (2024)
63. The Wrong Life Coach (2024)