MPAA Rating: R for strong disturbing violence, language and some sexuality.
Director: Mikael Håfström
Writer: Stuart Beattie
Cast: Clive Owen; Jennifer Aniston; Vincent Cassell
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Tagline: Some lines should never be crossed.
Memorable Movie Quote: "If you brought that shank in here, it's *pre-meditated* murder. The law don't care who you kill."
Release Date: November 11, 2005
Blu-ray Release Date: December 28, 2010.
|
When adultery goes awry and turns into a robbery, hopefully, Clive Owen will be there to “uncomplicate” it for you. That is IF you never plan on calling the cops in the first place for fear of getting caught cheating on your spouse. Chances are slim Mr. Owen would be there, but chances are also slim that you’ll be the victim of a double-cross so poorly telegraphed by a script better used as fire fodder, too. But, hey, the circumspect adultery is only one of the many implausibilities you’ll need to worry about with Mikael Hafstrom’s hobbling Derailed, now on blu-ray courtesy of the Weinsteins.
Charles Schine (Owen) finds himself in a mostly loveless marriage due to the stress of his daughter’s type-I diabetes illness. Soon enough, he finds himself swapping saliva with a train-hopping temptress named Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston). They get close, then closer, and then, on the night they have selected to consummate their intentions with each other, all hell breaks loose as their coitus is interrupted and turned into a robbery and then a rape. Enter Laroche (Vincent Cassel), a conniving thief who takes Charles for everything he is worth, he’s mean and twisted and his very presence seems to disrupt everything Charles thinks he knows about what is happening to him. He doesn’t and it will take rappers Xzibit and RZA to help him figure out just what the truth is.
The simple truth is that this film, while intended to become “derailed” during the adultery/robbery scene, is unhinged from the beginning. Owen plays an unlikable idiot from the beginning and never does anything to garner any sympathy from the audience. You know you’re up poop river without a paddle when his daughter’s diabetic relapse does nothing for the audience. Owen and the film want you to compare both to a Jimmy Stewart performance in an Alfred Hitchcock film, but Derailed is about as far away from the intelligence of Hitchcock you can get.
Aniston’s performance is a one-note affair: look sexy. She accomplishes this, but can’t muster enough tears to make us feel that any of this is really happening. It’s not. The whole thing is a set-up, but you already know this. The paper-thin plot – written by Stuart Beattie – leaves little to the imagination, including the revenge-driven jailhouse shanking epilogue. The only actor who seems to be really alive in this is Cassel, but even he could be accused of toughening up his Ocean’s Twelve thieving character instead of being wholly original.
Derailed is an easy and breezy affair for those audiences used to the genre of thrillers. Even in its unrated format there is nothing sexy or satisfying about this story which is a big problem. The other is that, when the whole twist to the narrative should be a surprise, and it absolutely isn’t, of course. It can’t even brew up enough honesty to shock its viewers with a rape sequence.
Derailed isn’t dangerous. It isn’t dark either. It’s just plain silly.
