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Released by: Vivendi Entertainment
Released on: 12/28/2010
Director: Mikael Hafstrom
Cast: Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston, Vincent Cassel, Xzibit, Rza
Year: 2005
The Movie:
Clive Owen plays Charles, an advertising executive in The Windy City, who has a chance encounter with a sexy woman named Lucinda. They have a love connection going and eventually find a seedy hotel in which to break their wedding vows. Well before that can really happen, a thug busts into the room, busts Charles head in, and busts a nut in Lucinda, against her will of course. Worried that their respective spouses would find out about their little fling, they agree not to go to the police. Soon, the thug contacts ol' Charles and threatens to kill his family unless he pays him 20 grand. Charles complies, but the thug (played by Vincent Cassel) hits him up again, this time for $100,000.
Charles knows a guy in the mailroom by the name of Winston, played by RZA. He agrees to pay him $10,000 to get rid of the thug, but the thug takes care of Winston first. Then he threatens to kill Lucinda and her kid unless Charles pays the money right away. Charles takes the money from his daughter's medical fund and then decides to talk to Lucinda and go to the police. But he finds out Lucinda is not who she appears to be, and what results is chaos, getting Charles thrown in the clink.
All this is told as a flashback. Cut to present time with Charles in jail. He finds a notebook where this entire story has been laid out and finds out who wrote it, and won't you all be shocked. No, not really. At any rate, more violence ensues and the story concludes. This review should just lay out the rest of the movie, but instead just know that the “twist†is hoping to be a lot cleverer than it actually is.
Clive Owen is competent in playing roles where you like him even though he's doing stupid and vile things. His role in this flick keeps him on that track, but you may find yourself wanting badness to befall him. Jennifer Aniston has a chance to play something other than a hot blonde who's also too cool for school. She does a swell job playing a not so nice person here, but her role could have been better played by a large number of people. And Vincent Cassel plays an excellent scum bucket and is probably the most interesting character, which probably wasn't the intent. Aside from the acting though, the movie doesn't offer up a whole lot. Sure there's gunplay, sex, violence, but overall it's just too polished to really embrace the sleazy and gritty vibe that a story of this type should have. There're lots of little twists and turns but the payoff is just…average. The most frustrating part for this viewer is the fact that all of this would have been avoided if they could just have done the right thing in the first place and left their first meeting at just that: a run-in with someone who finds the other attractive, but that's it. Instead they did the easy thing and surrendered to the carnal lust and went and did something dumb, like cheating on their spouses, which opened up a whole can of wipe-out. Do they make it right by doing valiant thing by going to the cops and talking to their spouses? No they fuck it up more by telling lies and turning to deceit to bury the problems they've created. And you know what? They got what they deserved. What goes around comes around and that seems to be the real message of this movie. Keep you nasty bits zipped up. Bad things happen to bad (and stupid) people.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Derailed is shown here on this disc with an aspect of 2.35:1 widescreen, and in 1080p high-definition. Blacks are deep, skin tones look correct. There is a bit of grain here that may throw of some expecting crystal clear imagery on a Blu-ray, but it's not distracting. No artifacts to be seen or discs flaws noticed.
The audio is a 5.1 DTS track, which sounds pretty decent. Lots of loud music with plenty of subwoofer action, and some good use of the surround sound during the action sequences. The balance between the dialogue and the music is sometimes a bit more in favor of the music, but for the most part it seems fine.
The extras are slim. Three items and none longer than ten minutes. Some deleted scenes, a “Making of†featurette, and the theatrical trailer. Not much to shout about at all in any of these, and really they aren't necessary. They certainly don't help the movie any.
The Final Word:
A pretty ho-hum movie that while it is watchable, it isn't anything people will talk about around the water cooler. Add to that an average image with decent sound and weak extras and it makes this one a rental, if anything.
