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.

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 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.

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.

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.