Review Of A Few Shitty Movies

I'm back. And I have become inspired to rant and rave about some really bad movies I've seen recently. So here it is:

Some of you may be aware of the specific genre of action/thriller/drama movies that have a person or couple being terrorized by a psychopath, whether it's "Fatal Attraction" (a disgruntled mistress), "Pacific Heights" (a guy renting an apartment), "Sleeping With The Enemy" (an estranged husband), "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle" (a nanny) "Unlawful Entry" (a cop), "Single White Female" (a roommate), "Consenting Adults" (a crazy neighbor), "The Temp" (self-explanatory), or even the 21st Century version of Fatal Attraction, "Obsessed", where it's a white woman stalking a black man. This schtick has pretty much been done to death in my opinion. Hollywood recently released a "Single White Female" clone, simply titled "The Roommate". And it was crap! To me, this is a perfect example of the "There Are Only So Many Ideas In The Universe" philosophy that I heard of a while ago. And now I'm beginning to believe it!

Anyway, I recently saw "The Crush" where Alicia Silverstone (in her debut) plays a very intelligent 14-year-old sociopath who is attracted to, and later obsessed with, a man who comes to stay in her parent's guesthouse. It's yet another of those stories where the psycho character in question has had a privledged childhood and is used to getting what she wants. So when the man rejects her advances, she does the typical thing and makes his life hell by sabotaging his job and causing various little "accidents" to happen. Basically, she is the "If I Can't Have Him/Her/It, Nobody Will" type of character, and this particular idea has been done time and time again, in dozens of movies in the last 40 years or so. Personally, I think it shows a real lack of intelligence on the part of Hollywood to keep on doing the same tired plot device in numerous movies over and over again.

But if I thought all of those previous movies were bad, apparently, I hadn't seen anything yet! I also have just seen "Enough" with Jennifer Lopez, from 2002. This is apparently one of those movies which a lot of people, especially women, really like, and a lot of critics really hate, including Roger Ebert, who gave it only a star and a half. This movie gave me a general overall bad and uncomfortable feeling, I could barely sit through the whole thing. A wealthy man named Mitch (Billy Campbell) visits a greasy spoon diner and manipulates a poor waitress named Slim (Lopez) into marrying him. The movie jumps ahead at a rapid pace, they soon have a daughter, and Slim finds out that he has several mistresses and confronts him, and that's when it gets really ugly. He starts to physically and psychologically abuse her, and one night, she takes their daughter and leaves him. But because of his wealth and high position in the community, he always seems to know just where she is, and even hires hit men to track her down. She has a co-worker (Juliette Lewis) who helps her escape the house and lets her stay at her place. Slim also contacts a friend from her past whom she briefly dated (Dan Futterman) who hides her from the goons that are looking for her. She also goes to her estranged father (Fred Ward) who wants nothing to do with her at first. However, the goons pay him a visit as well and threaten his life if he helps his daughter in any way. He decides to help her and sends her money. Also, the husband has a primary goon (Noah Wyle in a decidedly disturbing role) who pursues Lopez in an extended car chase scene. After Slim manages to evade him and escape, we do not see this character in the movie again. Finally Lopez decides she needs to go on the offensive, so she takes self-defense and martial arts lessons. She infiltrates the house, where Mitch is with another conquest, and waits for him to leave for work. She installs a device that disables cell phone signals, and she also uses a metal detector to locate both of his guns and takes them. When Mitch returns, she steps out of the shadows after she had disconnected the lights, and confronts him about all the immoral and illegal things he has done, and she says that it's time for a little payback. He is amused by this, and he attacks her. She defends herself pretty well and also gets in a few good punches and kicks, but he is much larger than her and his strength is slowly beginning to overwelm her. The final straw for Slim is when she has a flashback of Mitch striking their daughter, who falls down crying. Slim now knows that she has to end this once and for all. It looks almost as if he will kill her, but at the last second she shifts her and his weight and kicks him square in the chest, which sends him falling to the level below, where he smashes a table and is impaled. He is now dead.

What I can't understand is why this movie portrayed this wealthy asshole as having a lot of power and influence in the community, so much so that he is able to send goons after Slim who pretend to be part of the FBI, and why the police seemingly cannot do anything to stop him. Does he have all them in his pocket or something? Even Mitch's mother knows what is happening, as Slim comes to her house with bruises one day, but she cannot seem to do anything about it either. I thought he was in construction, I had no idea that he was the head of an organized crime syndicate, like Sean Penn in "Mystic River"! At least that's what it seemed like.

Anyway, the evil husband is dead, but the ending is somewhat unsatisfying. Slim and her daughter are now free from his tyranny and opression, and they decide to go live with the Dan Futterman character who helped her in her time of need. They also hint at their romance being rekindled. I just thought that there would be more to the ending than that, for some reason.

One more thing: One of the aforementioned movies "Sleeping With The Enemy" is a lot like "Enough" and came out in 1991. It was Julia Roberts' first major flop after she hit it big with "Pretty Woman". She plays a abused wife who moves away to a small beach community to hide from her psycho husband and meets a man whom she has trouble being able to trust. He in turn says to her: "I don't know how to feel what I'm feeling when I don't even know your name." To which she responds "People never really know each other."

If that doesn't qualify as some of the most pretentious dialogue that there has ever been, I don't know what does!

I really hate it when I watch a movie and it gives me an uncomfortable feeling inside. No wonder Roger Ebert gave "Enough" a bad review. Apparently, a lot of people did like it, as it supposedly had a feminist agenda, with a "battered woman gets revenge" plot. Well, feminism is all well and good, but watching it was a thoroughly unpleasant experience for me. I hope to never see it again!