This was a lot better than I expected. I’d never heard of it when I saw it on the shelf and only bought it to fill a gap in my overly-completist Dakota Fanning collection – I’d probably never have watched it had she not been in it. I didn’t expect her to be in it much so I was pleasantly surprised to find her face prominently featured in the DVD menus and it turns out to be one of (another of?) her best performances, FYI if you’re a fan, she’s in it plenty

As to the movie itself, it’s a truly classical Hitchcock-like thriller, the kind of movie where the level of acting that Fanning and Charlize Theron can provide isn’t really necessary (not that it isn’t welcome). Courtney Love and Kevin Bacon pitch it just right, delivering lines like, “This is a machine. This is a machine that runs on fear – your fear for Abby,” exactly the way they should be delivered, slightly wooden, yet not wooden, with a hint of tongue-in-cheek. The “perfect crime,” it’s meant to concern is actually slightly laughable, and when the motive is revealed it doesn’t really gel like it should, but that’s typical of movies like this. I think I’ll watch it again for sure, it’s tight, nonstop, even slightly moving. John Ottman’s score is pretty intense, too.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 11:43 pm in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.