Plot summary (with spoilers): Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshall assigned to investigate the disappearance of a patient at Ashecliff Hospital, an asylum for the criminally insane located on remote Shutter Island off the coast of Boston. Teddy has a new partner for the case, Chuck Aule (played by Mark Ruffalo), and the two get right down to business by interviewing Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley), the head psychiatrist for the facility.

The missing woman is named Rachel Soldano. She was a mother who murdered her three children by drowning them in a lake, and then carrying on wit her day as though nothing happened. Rachel apparently escaped from her room — which was bolted from the outside — and made it past the guards and electric fence. She must be somewhere on the island still, otherwise her body would have washed up on the rocks already.

Teddy and Chuck question other guards, orderlies, and patients as they try to figure out what happened. Nobody seems particularly helpful or anxious to get Rachel back. Because of the general feeling of the place, which reminds Teddy of liberating Dachau during World War II, he begins to think that there might be Nazi-like experimentation going on at Shutter Island. Chuck isn’t entirely on board with that, but backs his boss up.

The rest of the film then shows how Teddy and Chuck begin to uncover the secrets of Shutter Island and the mental hospital. Along the way, we get flashbacks of Teddy’s war experiences, as well as of his now-dead wife Dolores (Michelle Williams), whose apparition continually implores him to leave the island.

Liked:

• This movie was very suspenseful right from the start. I was immediately drawn into the story, and despite the 2-hour+ length, finished the entire thing in one sitting.
• I know the ending has created some controversy, but I tend to believe that Teddy was insane and that Crawley was telling the truth about the role play. I kind of had an “Oh, yeah” moment as the truth was revealed, and I’m sure upon second viewing I’d be able to pick up even more clues.
• DiCaprio is so good at playing tortured souls. I was riveted by his performance, and now rank him as one of my favorite actors. Wow.

Disliked:

• There were a few too many dream sequences with the wife for my tastes. Those scenes interrupted the flow of the film more than anything else.

Rating:

Martin Scorsese films are definitely hit-or-miss for me; Shutter Island is a massive hit! This is a great psychological thriller that will keep you guessing right up to the end — and perhaps beyond. I give it 5 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Rowena Price (played by Halle Berry) is an investigative journalist who doesn’t mind going after the tough stories. In the opening scene, she uncovers a U.S. senator’s sex scandal with a male staffer, and gets the senator threatening her on tape. The story will definitely derail the man’s career — but it is pulled and buried by the publisher. Another case of rich men protecting rich men, Rowena laments to researcher/co-worker/friend Miles (Giovanni Ribisi). She quits the paper and decides to pursue other stories on her own.

One promising lead drops into her lap when old friend Grace (Nicki Aycox) reveals that she has been having an affair with wealthy, married advertising exec Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis). Hill wants to break off the affair, but Grace isn’t willing to let him off the hook that easily. She encourages Rowena to run with the story, and gives her copies of email and IM exchanges between herself and someone with the screen name AdEx (whom Grace claims is Hill). Rowena reads through the files, and, after Grace is found murdered the next day, decides to spring into action, as she is convinced that Hill did it (or ordered it done).

With Miles’ help, Rowena gets a job at Hill’s agency, H2A, as a temp so she can get to watch Hill in action. Furthermore, Miles sets Rowena up in some chat rooms so she can “encounter” AdEx online and perhaps entice him into an in-person meeting. Miles is also looking for a way to hack into Hill’s H2A email account for concrete proof that the AdEx emails to Grace came from Hill.

The rest of the film then follows Grace’s attempts to get close to Harrison Hill, as she and Miles try to accumulate enough evidence to pin Grace’s murder on him. There is a major plot twist at the end, which I won’t reveal here, but will discuss with spoiler bars below. Read at your own risk!

Liked:

• The surprise ending has been panned by most critics and audiences, but after thinking about it for a bit, it didn’t bother me that much. I even liked it — to a certain extent. For one thing, I knew Harrison Hill wasn’t the killer, but I thought it would turn out to be Miles. When it was revealed that Rowena was the killer, I was shocked and thought, “Oh, come on!” but after reviewing some of the details, there were clues along the way. The clues don’t exactly let you guess that she was the killer, but they add up in the end. For instance, when Rowena found Miles’ porn stash, pictures of Grace, and shrine to her, she should have been scared. Anyone in her position would have thought Miles was the killer. But of course, since she was the killer, she simply reacted with anger and disgust.
• For as long a film as this was, there were very few slow spots. I was involved and at least mildly interested at what was going on most of the way.

Disliked:

• The part of the ending I didn’t like was the neighbor watching Rowena murder Miles. I was rooting for her by then and wanted her to get away with it.
• The motive for the killing was pretty thin. Rowena’s mother was in a nursing home, so I doubt the prosecutors would have gone after her very hard. Ro herself was just a kid at the time of the murder, so what could the authorities really do to her? That kind of blackmail wouldn’t hold up for that long, if you ask me.
• The way that Rowena and Miles were discussing how the killing unfolded at the end was laughable. Every few seconds they were in a different part of the apartment, posed in a different, totally casual manner. Yeah, that’s how I would react if a friend of mine were telling me that he knew how I killed someone!

Rating:

At the outset I was a bit worried about the ultra-negative reviews Perfect Stranger received, but I didn’t think it turned out to be that bad. It was watchable, and though there were some plot holes and a somewhat contrived ending, I thought it was sufficiently entertaining. Let’s just put it this way: I’ve seen worse. I give this film 3 stars out of 5.

Ever since the stunning twist writer/director M. Night Shyamalan dropped on audiences near the end of 1999′s The Sixth Sense, each of his new films has been greeted with anticipation of more great surprises. Unfortunately, Shyamalan has disappointed more often than not, and one has to believe that if he had never scored that blockbuster hit a decade ago, few of his newer projects, including The Happening, would have ever seen the light of day.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): The film opens in Central Park in New York, where two women are sitting on a bench having an ordinary conversation. All of a sudden, screams ring out, and one of the women looks around to see that almost everyone in the park appears to be frozen in mid-step. Those that can move are committing suicide in gruesome ways. The scene shifts to a construction site where workers begin taking swan dives off a building, and then on to a traffic jam where a police officer shoots himself in the head as others line up to use his gun on themselves.

Next, we go to Pennsylvania where high school teachers, including Elliot Moore (played by Mark Wahlberg) and his colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) are dismissed for the day with a warning from administrators about reports of terrorist attacks in New York City. The terror might spread to Pennsylvania, so all are encouraged to leave the area. Elliot immediately phones wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) while Julian rounds up daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) and tries to get in touch with his own wife.

On the way out of town, the train they’re all riding in suddenly stops near a small town. They can’t go any further, the conductor says, because they’ve lost contact with everybody. So Elliot, Alma, Julian, and Jess try to hitch rides out of the area towards the west, which is supposed to be away from the problems. When Julian gets a call saying that his wife is stuck in Princeton, he leaves Jess in Elliot and Alma’s care so he can go find her. Shortly thereafter, everyone in his vehicle commits suicide.

The rest of the film then focuses on Elliot, Alma, and Jess’s attempts to keep moving away from the mysterious toxin that is causing people to take their own lives. Some people believe it might be a wind-borne agent, while others think plants and trees are altering their chemical makeup to stave off some deadly virus. In any case, the disaster ends just as suddenly as it started, and nobody has any real answers about what happened.

My Reaction: The first thing I noticed about The Happening was how utterly terrible the acting performances were. I mean, I don’t go into a Mark Wahlberg film expecting Academy Award quality, but he wasn’t the only one bringing the ham. It got so distracting that I had to pause my DVD so I could do a few quick Google searches about the film — and only then did I discover that Shyamalan intended The Happening to be a throwback to old B-movies with schlocky plots and acting. Once I realized that the bad performances were intentional, they became easier to take, and even a bit funny.

There was nothing redeeming about the plot, however, as Shyamalan failed to build up any kind of suspense at all, and then didn’t even bother rewarding viewers with any kind of payoff. I just didn’t think that rustling leaves and bushes were scary, nor did I even understand how the wind could have anything to do with the sudden suicides. Furthermore, I thought it was ridiculous whenever the characters tried to outrun or stay ahead of the wind. Um, yeah, how exactly are you supposed to do that??

And the non-ending was a disappointment as well. While I realize that not everything in real life has pat explanations or succinct answers, I do expect something in the way of explanation from a movie. So Shyamalan’s choice to go the “we’ll never know” route just felt like more of a cop-out than a real ending — though I guess it was a fitting way to wind up a rather dull film.

Overall, The Happening is pretty much par for the course as far as recent M. Night Shyamalan films go. There’s a lot of buildup towards absolutely nothing, leaving the viewer feeling like a sucker for having sat through the entire thing. I give this movie 1 star out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Norma (played by Cameron Diaz) and Arthur Lewis (James Marsden) are a middle-class couple living in Richmond, VA in the year 1976. In the pre-dawn hours one morning, Norma is awakened by the sound of the doorbell. She reaches the door just in time to see a car driving away. Whoever had been there left a package on the porch, which Norma brings inside.

It’s a box with a card that says Mr. Steward will come at 5pm. Neither Norma nor Arthur know a Mr. Steward, but they figure the box has something to do with an upcoming wedding. Perhaps it’s a bridesmaid gift or whatever. The rest of the day, Norma and Arthur just go about their regular jobs (she as a private school teacher, he as a NASA engineer), not giving much thought to the box. Then at 5pm, Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) arrives, as promised.

Mr. Steward hands over a key and explains the purpose of the box to Norma. With the key, Norma can open the glass dome at the top of the box to reveal the plunger button. If she pushes the button, she will receive $1 million in cash (tax-free) — but the catch is that someone she doesn’t know will die. Norma is shocked by this, and later discusses the situation with Arthur. He dismantles the box, sees that there’s no wiring or tracking device of any kind, and passes the whole thing off as a hoax. Norma pushes the plunger.

Mr. Steward arrives the next day with the million dollars, saying that the box will be reprogrammed and presented to another couple — one that the Lewis’s do not know. When Arthur and Norma realize this means they (or their son) could be the ones to die next, they panic and try to return the money, but to no avail.

The rest of the film then shows Norma and Arthur trying to figure out who Mr. Steward is and what he represents. Supernatural elements are introduced, including portals that lead to either eternal damnation or salvation. By the end, the Lewis’s are faced with an impossible decision, as their son is deliberately struck deaf and blind by Steward.

My Reaction: I didn’t like it. After reading a bit more about this film, I learned that it was based off a short story, which was subsequently turned into a Twilight Zone episode. Now I can see how this would be an exciting story for those types of media, but there simply wasn’t enough meat to warrant making an entire movie out of this.

The first 15 minutes were good, as Norma and Arthur wrestled with the idea of pushing the button. They obviously didn’t really think Mr. Steward was serious about someone dying, so I don’t consider them greedy or anything. Arthur opened the box and didn’t think it was connected to anything. Can’t really blame them for just pushing the button out of exasperation or whatever.

The last 15 minutes of the film were good, too. I expected one of them to die because of Steward’s foreshadowing early on, but I wasn’t prepared for the setup. Can you imagine having to choose between killing your wife or forcing your son to live the remainder of his life deaf and blind? Quite a dilemma, and I think Arthur solved it the way most people would.

Those parts were interesting, as I said. But the middle? I kind of fell asleep, so I didn’t get the whole story about Steward’s background. I doubt if it would have made much difference, though. Did the screenwriters adequately explain Steward’s motives, the zombies in the library, or the portals? Probably not.

Overall, I was disappointed by The Box. Interesting premise and conclusion, but not enough substance to fill in an hour and forty minutes of screen time. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): Based on the Agatha Christie play of the same name, And Then There Were None is a groundbreaking (for its time) whodunit about a group of 10 strangers who were all invited to a secluded island by a man named U. N. Owen. Each invitation stated different reasons for asking the individual to come. Some thought they were getting job offers, while others thought they were simply participating in a weekend retreat.

Things get even more confusing when Mr. Owen doesn’t even show up. Instead, he leaves a record to be played by the butler Rogers (played by Richard Haydn), on which he accuses each attendee of murder. None actually killed anyone in a cold-blooded fashion, but their careless, selfish actions either directly or indirectly led to another’s death. Mr. Owen, who thinks the courts have failed miserably at letting these people get away with their crimes, seeks to exact his own brand of justice.

Everyone laughs off the recording at first, but then when Prince Nikita Starloff (Mischa Auer) suddenly drops dead, ostensible from cyanide poisoning in his drink, things take on a more gruesome aspect. The death, along with a broken Indian statue, suggest that the killer might be intent on knocking off his targets according to an old nursery rhyme. Furthermore, since no one else is on the island, that means the killer is walking among them under false pretenses.

The rest of the film shows the guests getting knocked off one by one, exactly according to the nursery rhyme. With each death, the survivors become increasingly agitated and suspicious of one another, until the final showdown where the real killer is unmasked.

My Reaction: I’d read the novel by Christie, which, while different than the play this movie was based on, was similar enough that I pretty much knew what was going to happen. The ending was significantly different, however. In the book, the judge’s plan works to perfection, whereas in the play and movie, he’s caught out by a couple of others and has the tables turned before he can carry things out to the end.

Even though I wasn’t surprised by anything that happened on the screen, I still thought this was an entertaining film. It probably would have been a lot more suspenseful and tension-filled if I didn’t already know the general plot, but it was a fun experience nevertheless. I was happy to see that the film clipped right along at a good pace, and didn’t delve off into any subplots that slowed the whole thing down. How likely would that be today, with Hollywood’s tendency to favor overbloated productions?

Overall, I thought And Then There Were None to be a very good film. It seems very tame compared to modern thrillers, but just remember that it was the first of its kind to use that whole “the killer is among us” plot that many have since copied. I give this movie 4 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Derek Charles (played by Idris Elba) seems to have the perfect life. He’s a high-powered asset manager with a firm called Gage Bendix, where he has just received a coveted promotion. He’s also married to Sharon (played by Beyoncé Knowles), has a 2-year-old son named Kyle (Nathan and Nicolas Myers), and has recently moved into a lovely home. Derek is on top of the world, which suits him just fine.

Things all change when Derek meets a beautiful new temp at Gage Bendix. Her name is Lisa Sheridan (Ali Larter), and though happily married, Derek can’t help but appreciate the view her short skirts provide. He’s friendly to Lisa in the elevator on her first day, which makes her like him immediately. And though Lisa was originally only hired for one day, she does good work so she’s asked to come back and cover for other staff members, as there seems to be some kind of bug going around. She does some wrangling, and ends up temping for Derek’s assistant Patrick (Matthew Humphreys).

This is when Lisa’s true colors start to show. She is unusually and inappropriately interested in Derek’s life. She learns a lot about him from Patrick’s files, sneaks into his office to look through his stuff, and generally starts acting like a stalker. Once she even stays behind in the lunchroom after everyone else has left. She’s crying, which gets Derek’s attention. Derek innocently asks Lisa what’s wrong, so she spills some story about being attracted to the wrong men. Derek says some generally encouraging stuff and touches her hand, which essentially seals his fate. Lisa is hooked. Even Derek’s best friend Ben (Jerry O’Connell) can see that.

From there, Lisa’s behavior becomes increasingly unbalanced. She aggressively comes on to Derek in a bathroom stall at the company Christmas party, and can’t seem to take no for an answer. Though nothing actually happened in that stall, she believes the two are an item now, so she makes several more approaches, all of which Derek firmly rebuffs.

The rest of the film then shows how Lisa’s attempts to get with Derek progressively escalate in nature. She tries to commit suicide at one point, then breaks into Derek’s home to mess with Kyle at another. Finally, there’s a knockdown, drag-out fight between Lisa and Sharon, which pretty much ends as it should.

My Reaction: I wasn’t expecting much out of Obsessed, but thought it was a decent thriller. The plot is very predictable, of course, but that doesn’t necessarily render a film unwatchable. I was still able to enjoy bits and pieces of this one despite knowing what was coming next for the most part.

Actually, this film made me think how easy it is for a stalker to completely ruin someone’s life. Sure, it might be a stretch, but many of the events in Obsessed could happen for real. Perhaps some people in Derek’s position would have called the cops after the first bathroom incident, but I bet not many would. And then by the time Lisa’s actions escalated to the point where Derek sought outside intervention, she had already quit her job, so he thought he was in the clear. In other words, I could buy someone reacting as Derek did. He wasn’t just a typical movie dupe, which helped make the film more enjoyable.

Some people have complained that Beyoncé’s character ruined the movie for them, but I disagree. Yes, she was shrill and angry in most of her scenes, and I can see how some would find her to be a buzzkill. But that’s how the significant other is always written in these types of movies, so I’m not sure how viewers would expect her to behave.

Don’t get me wrong; Obsessed will never be mistaken for great cinema. But it was a decent film that is entertaining enough to warrant spending $3 on a rental for your next movie night. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Plot summary (with spoilers): The popular and progressive Pope has died, which means that a new Pope must be elected by the college of Cardinals. As a result, the most important figures in the Catholic church have descended on Vatican City to participate in the sacred rites of Conclave.

Meanwhile, at the CERN research facility in Geneva, Switzerland, someone has breached the building’s high-tech biometric security and stolen a small amount of antimatter, which scientist Vittoria Vetra (played by Ayelet Zurer) and her team had been working for years to create.

The scene then shifts to Harvard University, where symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is approached by a Vatican official requesting his help. Four cardinals, known as the preferiti, preferred ones, because they have the best chance of being elected Pope, have been kidnapped by the Illuminati, a secret society of “freethinkers” that was supposed to have died out long ago. Past Illuminati included such “radicals” as Galileo, Bernini, Rafael, and Goethe, men who challenged Church doctrine by insisting that science, not religion, could explain how the universe worked. The latest incarnation of the Illuminati have threatened to kill one preferiti per hour beginning at 8pm. Once all the preferiti have been disposed of, the highly unstable antimatter will explode, causing all of Vatican City and a significant portion of Rome to be destroyed.

From there, Langdon and Vetra race to follow ancient Illuminati clues to find their secret churches where the cardinals and antimatter are being held in order to save the men and recharge the antimatter casing batteries so the container can be safely returned to CERN. Langdon and Vetra are aided by Vatican City officials Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) and Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgård), as well as by the Carmelengo (Ewan McGregor), an official of the Papal Court.

My Reaction: I read the Dan Brown novel far too long ago to remember specifics and nitpick any changes the screenwriters chose to make. And I know there are tons of flaws in the film’s treatment of antimatter and its properties. But I’m not going to discuss any of that because I simply don’t know enough about it myself in order to refute what was presented. Instead, I’m just going to talk about the story I saw.

I thought Angels & Demons was far more entertaining than its (film) predecessor The Da Vinci Code. I think the “ticking bomb” plot device really helped this movie stay on track, as there were absolutely no wasted scenes along the way. The film clocks in at about 2 hours and 10 minutes long, but the time flies by quickly because the characters just race from one clue to another on their way to finding the cardinals and the antimatter.

I enjoyed the twist at the end, and have to admit that I was taken by surprise even though I had read the book. It was so well executed that even as the Carmelengo was being discussed as a possibility for Pope, I was like, “Wait, wasn’t he supposed to be the bad guy??” I didn’t know if the filmmakers had decided to put it all on Richter or not, so I was caught off guard there. And Carmelengo’s helicopter heroics looked very cool on screen, whereas in the book, the description sounded rather ridiculous.

The clues that Langdon and Vetra had to unravel here weren’t as interesting or jaw-dropping as those in The Da Vinci Code, but it was still fun hearing about what the Illuminati might have been up to. And even though I know Brown made up that last book of Galileo’s, I still had to shake my head at the thought of the Vatican giving such a rare and valuable text to Langdon. No way would that happen! (Yeah, yeah — no way would 99% of the rest of the movie happen either, but this point totally bothered me.)

Overall, Angels & Demons was a fun, entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. If you’re content to enjoy the action without feeling the need to nitpick everything that happens on screen, I think you’ll like this one. I give it 4 stars out of 5.

The phrase “war on terror” is a very divisive and loaded one, with some people believing that the government has the right — and indeed the responsibility — to do everything in its power to prevent terrorist activity on U.S. soil. Others, however, believe that any civilian casualty or collateral damage is too great a price to pay. The 2008 film Traitor takes a unique angle on this question by presenting events from the perspective of a man whose religious and political beliefs are often at cross-purposes with each other.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Samir Horn (played by Don Cheadle) is a Sudanese-born American who makes a living as an arms dealer. While in the middle of a deal in Yemen, he’s arrested and imprisoned with Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), who was the intended buyer. Samir and Omar realize that their ideologies match up pretty well, and, after breaking out, meet up again to pursue terrorist activities. When their first target is compromised, Samir takes matters into his own hands and bombs the U.S. Embassy in Nice, France.

Samir was already on FBI radar for his arms deals, so once he’s identified as the perp in the Nice bombing, agents Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Max Archer (Neal McDonough) go after him in earnest. What Clayton and Archer don’t know is that Samir is a deeply embedded agent himself, working with FBI contact Carter (Jeff Daniels) to infiltrate terrorist cells and root out enemy combatants. The Nice bombing turned out to be a setup, with no actual casualties, despite what was reported in the news.

As the film unfolds, we see Samir continuing to pose as a terrorist, setting up a massive attack on 50 buses while Clayton and Archer scramble to figure out the group’s next move. After Carter is killed, Samir is finally forced to make contact with Clayton, and together the two are able to minimize the damage and eliminate some of the bad guys.

My Reaction: I found Traitor to be a pretty boring film. I’m not sure if the audience was supposed to think that Samir was a bad guy or not, but I had him pegged as a mole right from the start. I mean, I hate to typecast actors, but Don Cheadle just gives off an air of being a good guy, so it’s difficult to buy him as a villain. If the reveal was supposed to be a shocker, it wasn’t.

Also, I thought the terrorist plots were too vague to generate any kind of tension while watching. I knew what the intended targets were and everything, but the motivation behind the terrorists actions was never made sufficiently clear. The American people have to pay for what their government has done? Yeah, that’s not very specific… and made me not really care what was going on. I know some people will say that the whole point was to show that motivations aren’t always clear, but while that is perfectly fine for “real life”, it doesn’t play as well on the silver screen.

Overall, Traitor was too dull to be engrossing or entertaining. Cheadle gave a good performance, but there wasn’t enough suspense or drama to make me pay attention to the plot. I give this film 2 stars out of 5.

As soon as I saw the trailer for Lakeview Terrace, I thought it looked like a dumb film that I wouldn’t bother with. Its meager box office receipts seemed to bear me out, but one thing led to another, and I somehow ended up renting the DVD when there wasn’t much else available. Unfortunately, my first impressions from the trailer were dead on, as this film was ridiculously implausible from beginning to end.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Samuel L. Jackson stars as Abel Turner, a widowed LAPD officer who is shown early on to be a strict disciplinarian with his children. He has rules for everything, they complain, even down to which L.A. Lakers jersey son Marcus (played by Jaishon Fisher) can wear (they don’t support Kobe). Abel is just as tough on the job, especially when dealing with informant Clarence Darlington (Keith Loneker). Basically, Abel is the kind of guy you don’t want to piss off.

Another thing Abel dislikes is interracial couples, which is bad news for Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa Mattson (Kerry Washington), who have just moved in next door. At first, Abel appears to be friendly, dispensing advice about the ins and outs of the neighborhood and so forth, but Chris soon notices that Abel’s actions always have a negative undertone. For example, Abel’s house is equipped with floodlights that are meant to protect against possible intruders advancing from the canyon behind the houses, but the lights just happen to shine directly into the Mattson’s bedroom. When Chris asks Abel to turn off the lights until they can get some curtains up, Abel puts him off with one excuse after another.

Tensions between Abel and Chris escalate, as Abel surreptitiously sabotages things around the Mattson house, including the air conditioner and their vehicles. After Abel and his kids witness the Mattsons having sex in their pool, all bets are off as Abel tries in earnest to get the Mattsons out of the neighborhood. The final straw is when he forces Clarence to break in and vandalize the Mattsons’ house — a stunt that goes horribly wrong when Lisa returns home early.

Finally, Chris gets confirmation that Abel was indeed behind all the Mattsons’ problems, and he gets into an armed confrontation with the man out on the street — with deadly results.

My Reaction: I thought Lakeview Terrace had a pretty flimsy premise (Abel’s character disliked interracial couples), and therefore wasn’t able to put together a convincing story. Very little background information about Abel was given, so it was difficult to understand just where his prejudice was coming from — until very close to the end when he revealed that his ex-wife had been having an affair with a white man. But by then it was too late to bring forth this type of justification because the character was already lost to me.

A bigger problem with the film was that there were no likable characters at all. While Abel was supposed to be the bad guy, the story was more or less told from his point of view, so there was a tendency to want to side with him. I kept expecting some skeleton in the Mattsons’ closet to be unearhed that would ultimately justify Abel’s harassment, and when that didn’t happen, I was kind of adrift in terms of which character to support. I couldn’t bring myself to sympathize with Chris because Patrick Wilson played him as such a whiny little bitch that I was rooting for Abel to knock him out every time they were in the same room together.

And finally, I couldn’t figure out why Abel had Clarence break into the Mattsons’ house in broad daylight when everyone was just down the block. Why not wait until they were out to dinner or something and then have it done? Abel could easily go somewhere else during the time to give himself a rock-solid alibi, so it was just plain stupid to have the break-in occur when it did. Of course, it had to happen that way to fit the plot, but I can’t stand it when plot devices are as transparent as this.

Ordinarily I would be surprised Roger Ebert gave a film like Lakeview Terrace four stars, but my tastes diverged from his years ago, so I guess his high rating is to be expected. I give it 2 stars out of 5.

Films about child kidnappings and murders are always hard to take, but the emotions involved are usually heightened whenever the story is based on true events. That’s the case with Changeling, from Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood. The movie recounts events that happened in connection with the disappearance of Walter Collins, nine-year-old Los Angeles boy who went missing back in 1928. I expected to have my heartstrings tugged at this one, but because some of the events were so absurd, I found myself shaking my head in anger instead.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers):Christine Collins (played by Angelina Jolie) is a single mom who works long hours at a telephone call center in order to support her son Walter (Gattlin Griffith). One Saturday when Christine and Walter were planning to go to the movies, Christine unexpectedly gets called into work to cover for a sick colleague. She reluctantly goes, leaving Walter home alone and asking neighbors to look in on the boy from time to time. After she returns a bit later than usual, she discovers to her horror that Walter is missing. She searches the neighborhood in vain, and then reports the disappearance to the police.

According to policy, the LAPD can’t act on the disappearance until the boy has been missing for 24 hours. Even after they do get on the case, they can’t uncover any solid leads. Months pass without word — until they get news of a boy in Dekalb, Il that matches Walter’s description. After interviewing the boy, who says that he’s Walter and is from Los Angeles, Capt. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) of the LAPD organizes a reunion with Christine. The police department has been under fire in the media for corruption, so Jones seizes on this opportunity to put the department in a good light by showcasing the story of reuniting a kidnapped boy with his mom. But Christine takes one look at “Walter” and immediately knows that it’s not her son.

Jones refuses to believe that Christine is telling the truth, saying the boy has been through a lot and could have changed during the five months he was gone. He urges Christine to take the boy home and “try him out” for a few weeks, which she inexplicably agrees to do. Further differences in height and dental records confirm that the boy is not really Walter, but when Christine tries to press the issue with Capt. Jones, he has her thrown into a mental institution.

The rest of the film then deals with how the case played out from there, with a radio preacher named Rev. Gustav Briegleb (John Malkovich) getting involved on Christine’s behalf and with the revelation that a serial killer from Riverside had been targeting boys in the area. An eyewitness places Walter at the killer’s farm, but there’s a chance the boy might have somehow escaped. Since Walter’s remains were never positively identified, Christine held out hope for the rest of her life that Walter would eventually come home.

My Reaction: If Changeling hadn’t been based on true events, I would have immediately dismissed this movie as highly improbable and pushing the bounds of believability. First of all, it struck me as completely ludicrous that officials would refuse to believe a mother saying that a certain kid wasn’t her son. I know that they didn’t have DNA testing back then, but medical records and testimony from others should have served as sufficient evidence even if the cops didn’t want to give the mom the benefit of the doubt. Moreover, it was totally creepy for the other kid to claim to be Walter, and I didn’t like how the film took so long to explain that boy’s motives. None of it made sense as it was unfolding on the screen, and that just took me out of the film altogether.

I thought the serial killer angle was much more interesting than Walter’s disappearance, so I wish the filmmakers had chosen to focus on that a bit more. I know it wouldn’t be possible for them to do that without a great deal of speculation about what might have happened, but still… it’s not as though every other event in the film was documented exactly as it occurred.

The performances in Changeling were pretty good all the way around. I particularly liked the young actor who played the serial killer’s unwilling assistant. Eddie Alderson was terrific, and certainly has a bright future in Hollywood if this role gives us any indication of his skill level. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get a Supporting Actor nomination… he was that good.

Overall, Changeling was a decent film, but wasn’t quite what I expected it to be. It felt a bit too disjointed with the first half focusing on Walter’s disappearance and the imposter and the second focusing on the serial killer, which served to lessen the impact of both storylines. As a result, I give this film 3 stars out of 5.