This week in New Releases we see three popular releases that are all pretty sucky. Source Code is supposed to be a fun little cyber thriller from Duncan Jones, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night was the small release earlier this year that did no business, and Trust is the newest film from David Schwimmer (you haven't heard of it?!). See our our reviews of these after the jump.
Source Code
Duncan Jones struck gold with his 2009 sci-fi masterpiece, Moon, starring Sam Rockwell, so I was a little more than curious to see where he’d go with his sophomore feature, Source Code. I have to say I was pretty disappointed to say the least. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a soldier hooked up to a machine that transports him to a memory of a guy on a train that’s about to be blown up in a terror attack. His mission is to find the bomb and bomber and hopefully save the lives of everyone. The story is sort of like a science fiction/thriller version of Groundhog Day with repetitive scenes that show the same images as Jones irons out all of the details of the story. The movie wasn’t terrible, but it was predictable and didn’t have a cohesive plot that was believable or interesting. Gyllenhaal’s performance was boring (aren’t they always?) and I was less than impressed by the supporting cast, which included Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright.
2 out of 5
1 out of 5
Trust
Whoa, I remember being a young nubile young man when the internet chatrooms first took off and I loved lying about my age and saying I was older than I was and...well, let's just say that a walk down memory lane this is not. Trust is David Schwimmer's most recent directorial effort about a young girl in high school who befriends a guy online who turns out to be a pedophile. Clive Owen plays her father and Catharine Keener her mother. The movie is about the working mechanics of a family trying to obsessively track down this guy who has since gone under the radar and how this has hurt this girl's life so much. The biggest problem with this movie is that it feels like a deeply dramatized cross between To Catch a Predator and the movie of the week on the Lifetime Channel. Schwimmer's direction is loose and cliche, though he does get a good performance out of Clive Owen--who is definitely the best part of the movie. Trust is predictable and tramples territory that's already been paved before. The story was a bit too conniving in an after-school special type of way, but I guess the core of the movie is the fact that there are still internet predators and girls with low self esteem who get preyed on constantly. I didn't really learn anything from this movie other than to stop talking to my online friend, Horatio. Movies like this are good as educational material for preteens and teens, and can certainly creep out the audience, but at the actual film simply isn't very good. Schwimmer should just sell this to schools instead of an audience who has seen this all before.
2 out of 5
Whoa, I remember being a young nubile young man when the internet chatrooms first took off and I loved lying about my age and saying I was older than I was and...well, let's just say that a walk down memory lane this is not. Trust is David Schwimmer's most recent directorial effort about a young girl in high school who befriends a guy online who turns out to be a pedophile. Clive Owen plays her father and Catharine Keener her mother. The movie is about the working mechanics of a family trying to obsessively track down this guy who has since gone under the radar and how this has hurt this girl's life so much. The biggest problem with this movie is that it feels like a deeply dramatized cross between To Catch a Predator and the movie of the week on the Lifetime Channel. Schwimmer's direction is loose and cliche, though he does get a good performance out of Clive Owen--who is definitely the best part of the movie. Trust is predictable and tramples territory that's already been paved before. The story was a bit too conniving in an after-school special type of way, but I guess the core of the movie is the fact that there are still internet predators and girls with low self esteem who get preyed on constantly. I didn't really learn anything from this movie other than to stop talking to my online friend, Horatio. Movies like this are good as educational material for preteens and teens, and can certainly creep out the audience, but at the actual film simply isn't very good. Schwimmer should just sell this to schools instead of an audience who has seen this all before.
2 out of 5
© Jason Haskins, 2011
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