Dream House

            Here's the only thing you need to know to enjoy Dream House:  Do not watch the trailer.

On to the review!

            Dream House is a deeply flawed film, and it all starts with the marketing.  In order to properly sell a mystery/thriller, you need to not give the audience everything they needs to know to piece together the twist(s).  I would like Hollywood to listen to me just this once:  Fire whatever marketing team/individual/troll put together the movie trailer.  By fire, I mean set on fire, then discontinue their employment.

            The movie itself isn't much better, even if I hadn't pieced together the entire thing about 30 minutes in. 

            I guess spoilers from this point on, because there's no damn way I can discuss this movie without ruining something.

            When you make a mystery movie, you need red herrings.  When you only introduce characters that are totally necessary to the plot....you're a lazy damn movie.  I am seriously not exaggerating when I say that this lean film is better suited to a drama.  In fact, given the list of A-list actors roped into Dream House, it's a shame they didn't actually...y'know...utilize them.

            Daniel Craig stars as Will Atenton while his real-life wife Rachel Weisz plays his movie wife, Libby.  In the beginning of the film Mr. Atenton quits his job and moves into a newly-purchased home with Libby and their two kids.  Then....weird things start to happen.  It seems that several years ago an entire family was murdered in the Atenton residence.  A woman and two children were died, but the father survived and was committed to a local nuthouse.

           

            But....*gasp*....Daniel Craig's family consists of a woman and two children! 

           

            Now people are acting weird around him!

            Maybe HE killed his family!....

            or...

            MAYBE HE DIDN'T!!!!!?!???!?!?!!

            Or maybe he did.

            Unfortunately, there is genuine chemistry between Craig and Mrs. Weisz, and Naomi Watts does just enough to make you care about her turn as the neighbor, Ann.  Elias Koteas shows up a few times, seemingly slumming it, but he also does a fine job of playing his part.  It's just a real shame that all this 'acting' is completely wasted on such a hackneyed plot.  Also, why the hell do I keep confusing Elias Koteas with Christopher Meloni?

            I really don't have anything else to say except rent this movie if you want to see it but already caught the trailer.  If you like good acting and don't care about plot, then by all means, check this out.  The theater experience did absolutely nothing for me, but I guess it's a good thing that nobody walked out?  I guess?

            For a good mystery, you could always get off your duff and watch The Usual Suspects or The Others or The Sixth Sense if you haven't already.  In Dream Houses' defense, I guess it's not the worst movie with a word for home in the title.  The Haunted Mansion bears that torch.

The Debt (Owes me Five Bucks)

I perceived The Debt as one of the most ridiculously hyped films I have ever seen.  Its trailer played before almost every film I saw over the summer, whether or not it was appropriate (like playing before a comedy or a horror.  What the hell, Hollywood?).  Initially, I was very, very excited to see a movie that jumps through time, stars Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, and has gorgeous semi-newcomer Jessica Chastain play the young version of Helen Mirren's character, Rachel.  Hell, even the threat of Sam Worthington was not enough to dissuade me from wanting to see the film.

Then I saw the trailer again...

and again...

and again...

Each time I viewed it, I started to worry a little bit more.  "Why are they pimping this movie so much?  Is it because it's going to be the first award-worthy film, kicking off the fall season a little early?...No...they don't do that until September or even October...Shit...this comes out in August...that's like the graveyard shift for movies...."

Then: "Why the hell have I not seen a single trailer for this on TV?  I know I don't watch too much television, but surely someone else has heard of this....No...nobody seems to know of this film.  Shit."

...and then I watched the movie.

On to the review!

The Debt is an action/murder/mystery/drama starring the aforementioned Miss Mirren and Mr.'s Wilkinson and, to a lesser extent, Worthington.  Mirren and Chastain play Rachel, Worthington and Ciaran Hinds play young and old David, respectively, and Wilkinson and Marton Csokas play the old and young Stephan.  I deliberately wrote that confusingly to give you a feel for the first twenty minutes of this film.  While your mind tries to get everyone right with their future/past selves, you get to miss chunks of dialog and, supposedly, plot.  The first misstep of the movie: confusing an audience.  Great for a murder mystery, not great for an amalgamation of several movies that ends less with a bang and more with a weird splat.

Ostensibly, Rachel, David and Stephan are Israeli special agents who have infiltrated East Berlin to find and kidnap a former Nazi, returning him to Israel so that he can be tried for war crimes.  Of course, nothing goes as planned, and shit hits the fan.  One part of the movie has this great idea of replaying an event more than once, changing the story a bit as the truth comes out.  Unfortunately, they do that by first showing you a ten minute scene, and then later showing you the exact same eight minutes of the same footage, followed by something different.  For a film that comes in under two hours, it is inexcusable to re-use footage.  Seriously, The Debt?  You couldn't have at least shot it from a different angle or something?  ESPECIALLY when the footage is half-boring and half-ridiculous?

Other offenses include: Not being mysterious, not being interesting, letting Sam Worthington try acting, having a cheesy, ham-fisted ending when the movie could have ended on such a better, more interesting note ( if you had just cut the camera off ten minutes earlier), and fooling me into thinking this was going to be a good, thought-provoking film on how special agents do their country's dirty work while trying to handle their own grief, a la Munich.

You sons of bitches, you fooled me into looking forward to another Munich!

So yeah, don't worry about seeing this one in theaters.  Don't worry about seeing it in red box, either, unless you have a thing for seeing Helen Mirren in a nightgown.  If you do...don't ever tell me about it.