Derailed
Jennifer Aniston does some intersting work in a
tale of blackmail, and one hulking idiot
I am a Clive Owen fan so I went to see "Derailed"
before it disappears for good. The film centers on Clive Owen's character
falling for a sexy woman on the train from his suburban home to Chicago. She
lends him money when he's short and he repays her with lunch and a trip to a
hotel one night after telling his boring wife he's working late. Their encounter
is cut short when an evil Frenchmen bursts in and beats up Clive Owen,
incapacitating him, and then raping Lucinda
(Aniston).
In possession of his wallet,
the evil Frenchmen gouges him for $20K, then $100K, all the money Clive and his
wife have saved for the still-not-available anti-rejection drugs for their
diabetic daughter, whose body keeps rejecting her new kidneys. They have a
secord mortgage to pay for her in-home dialysis (rather than leave her each
night at a hospital).
The plot twists are
worthy of Hitchcock but in the back of your head, watching this film, you have
to wonder why this idiot hasn't called the cops. Yeah, yeah, he's afraid of
being revealed as a cheat to his wife, but he still sort of seems like an idiot.
I mean, he has a lawyer and some smarts. What differentiates this from a
Hitchcock film is that the Master always gave a "wrong man" scenario, whereas
here, we have a "guilty man" scenario. Considering his marriage is basically
held together by their sick daughter, why imperil the entire family (which is
what he does)?
The film also goes for a
revenge angle, unlike the great films of Hitchcock. It's one thing to get your
hands dirlty; it's quite another to cover yourself in mud and run around
screaming.
On a completely different
note... we get to see very little of Clive Owen's physique. That's the main
reason you go to see these films! He's basically a very butch Jude
Law.
Posted: Thu - December
22, 2005 at 02:31 AM