I picked this up this evening for no other reason than the cast. Oh, sure, now and then I do enjoy a good horror flick (this isn't one) and was in the mood to watch some mindless goop. Well, FEARDOTCOM is certainly mindless; indeed, I muttered out loud when the credits were running, "Oh my God! They actually had a writer!" Could have fooled me -- I was literally expecting one of those "Script by Committee" acknowledgments; whoever Josephine Coyle is I sure hope she doesn't quit her day job (her only other credit listed at IMDb is as a "production coordinator" for PRESENCE OF MIND in 1999).
And, largely because of that miserable excuse for a script, it winds up being not a good ANY kind of film: When the bloody hell are film makers going to realize the rather elementary truth (as in Kindergarten level) that if you don't have a good script, you don't have a film? Period! Never mind good production values (and I hate to admit it but they ain't bad), good direction (this definitely has none of that - Lord! The number of bloopers is just astonishing SPOILER**Just as a for instance: When McElhone rushes into the psychiatric ward of the hospital to talk to Dorff (with no explanation WHY he's in a psychiatric unit), is directed to his room "first door on the left," she is instantly there, finds him having a full-on seizure (with no medical people in attendance, mind you), and suddenly -- when she, oh, so frightfully conveniently gets a phone call -- NOW she's got to go out the door onto a stair landing and through yet another doorway before she's back in the same corridor! Really good continuity there, folks!) END SPOILER.
I have admired Stephen Dorff in many films **but this was just, well, a grunting quasi-Neanderthal that pretty much embodied every tired cliché there is for a world weary cop since sometime in the 1930s**! (**Oh yeah! And somebody really should point out to this generally admirable young actor that if you have a story in which the primary character doesn't "solve" the main problem, but instead winds up a clueless bystander, you just don't have a viable story.**) I adored Natasha McElhone in MRS DALLOWAY (and -- even GIVEN the weaknesses of the character in the script -- in THE TRUMAN SHOW), and have been an admirer of Stephen Rea ever since THE CRYING GAME, too -- but I can't figure out why they agreed to do this one; did they all need some quick-and-dirty money or something. . . .
Usually one can at least learn something from a genuinely bad movie (which this is) but with this one, for the very first time, I wanted to go back to my film rental store and demand my $3.50 back on general principles.
I'm glad I didn't follow my first impulse to shut the show down at the end of the "first reel" 20 minute period, because I can quite honestly report about this disaster of a movie: Dreadful! Just dreadful on every level except, as I said above, production values. Big deal!
And, largely because of that miserable excuse for a script, it winds up being not a good ANY kind of film: When the bloody hell are film makers going to realize the rather elementary truth (as in Kindergarten level) that if you don't have a good script, you don't have a film? Period! Never mind good production values (and I hate to admit it but they ain't bad), good direction (this definitely has none of that - Lord! The number of bloopers is just astonishing SPOILER**Just as a for instance: When McElhone rushes into the psychiatric ward of the hospital to talk to Dorff (with no explanation WHY he's in a psychiatric unit), is directed to his room "first door on the left," she is instantly there, finds him having a full-on seizure (with no medical people in attendance, mind you), and suddenly -- when she, oh, so frightfully conveniently gets a phone call -- NOW she's got to go out the door onto a stair landing and through yet another doorway before she's back in the same corridor! Really good continuity there, folks!) END SPOILER.
I have admired Stephen Dorff in many films **but this was just, well, a grunting quasi-Neanderthal that pretty much embodied every tired cliché there is for a world weary cop since sometime in the 1930s**! (**Oh yeah! And somebody really should point out to this generally admirable young actor that if you have a story in which the primary character doesn't "solve" the main problem, but instead winds up a clueless bystander, you just don't have a viable story.**) I adored Natasha McElhone in MRS DALLOWAY (and -- even GIVEN the weaknesses of the character in the script -- in THE TRUMAN SHOW), and have been an admirer of Stephen Rea ever since THE CRYING GAME, too -- but I can't figure out why they agreed to do this one; did they all need some quick-and-dirty money or something. . . .
Usually one can at least learn something from a genuinely bad movie (which this is) but with this one, for the very first time, I wanted to go back to my film rental store and demand my $3.50 back on general principles.
I'm glad I didn't follow my first impulse to shut the show down at the end of the "first reel" 20 minute period, because I can quite honestly report about this disaster of a movie: Dreadful! Just dreadful on every level except, as I said above, production values. Big deal!