STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Lillian (Julia Stiles), a young woman in a small town coming to terms with the death of her mother (or her cat, anyway) finds herself being stalked by weird corrupt cop turned crime lord Blackway (Ray Liotta-who killed the cat, in case you were wondering. Just 'cos he's an arsehole, I guess.) With the local police proving pretty useless, she turns to old tree logger Lester (Anthony Hopkins), who's struggling with the death of his daughter, for help. The little old man, with his assistant Nate (Alexander Ludwig), proves more resourceful than expected, leading to a dramatic final confrontation with Blackway.
At what's now a very late stage in his career, one time Hannibal Lecter himself Anthony Hopkins is now surfacing in these disposable thriller type of films, this latest of which has turned up straight on DVD, and with good reason. With its made for TV production values pretty low budget, this is a dismal, deadly dull affair that fails to come together and work.
It feels like all the right ingredients were there, but it just failed to have any effect. The screen is drained of any light, leaving a grey, dinghy look over it all, and all that's in its place is a boring thriller where you fail to care about the story or any of the characters at all. Such a competent cast should have seen things work out better, with the likes of Hopkins and fellow veteran actor Hol Holbrook on hand, as well as Liotta who actually works well as a really nasty piece of work who gets off on making people feel uncomfortable.
It's no less a failure, though, and one to be missed. *
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