Cast:
Johnny Depp .... Mort Rainey
Maria Bello .... Amy Dowd Rainey
Gillian Ferrabee .... Fran Evans
Richard Jutras .... Motel Manager
John Turturro .... John Shooter
Summary:
Johnny Depp plays an established writer who lives alone in a small town
after splitting with his wife. One day a strange man knocks on his door
claiming that he stole a story of his and that they would have to deal
with this problem one on one. Later on he finds his wife's dog killed
by the man as a warning to take him seriously. The man keeps showing up
in strange times and doing stranger things every time.
Critique:
Capitalizing on Depp's recent Oscar nomination, Columbia Pictures moves
up the release date for this thriller in a smart move to take advantage
of the buzz surrounding him. Although he's been quiet in the last few
years, his box office career just reached it's beak after "Pirates
of The Caribbean" became the surprise hit it was. With this release
date, this film should not have any problems into taking the number 2
spot behind "The Passion" and banking in more than $20 million
this weekend. Despite of its box office future, "Window" is
a decent thriller that is saved by its cast and execution.
Probably the best thing about this movie is the acting by the cast. Johnny
Depp and John Turturro really make this movie what it is. Turturro has
been doing comedies lately but this is the opposite of his recent projects.
He plays a dark psychotic character and convinces you that he is just
that.
The excution was pretty good as well. The direction, choice of shots
and the sound effects were nice. I like PG-13 movies which can get the
audience into it like a horror movie. This obviously isn't as scary as
"The Ring" or that sort of movie but there were some scary scenes
from nothing which is always fun.
The first problem with this movie is the writing. Thrillers like this
should go in a faster pace and slow down during the scary parts but this
movie felt like it was going very slow for the runtime it had. It felt
like it was trying to create a story from nothing. At one point during
the movie, a viewer may not care anymore about the story or just get annoyed
with the going back and forth.
Also what makes these thrillers good or not so good is the twist. How
shocking the twist is to the audience is one of the key components and
like the trailer said "The ending is the most important part of the
story". Unless there is extraordinary acting, direction or cinematography,
the twist is what makes a thriller better than the next one. This twist
I've seen before in a recent "classic" so I didn't like it very
much.
Even with all that, I still liked the movie for some reason. It was entertaining
if you could over the obvious flaws. There is a lot of humor in it which
could be taken as a positive in terms of making it a lighter film or a
negative in terms of not keeping up the dark, thrilling, scary feel to
the movie.
Overall this was a decent, entertaining and fun thriller. It's better
than a lot of recent ones but not as good as others. If you like Depp
or Turturro or just want to have a fun time then this should do the trick
Rating: 7/10
Runtime: 106 min.
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence/terror, sexual content and language.
"Secret Window" opens nationwide Friday March, 12, 2004.
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