Review of Butterfly on a Wheel (2007) by Jesse O — 22 Aug 2016

I think this came out at the time where movies like this felt the need to be clever with their story and to have some sort of twist. More often than not, however, those twists would end up being really convoluted and nonsensical.

This should be common sense, but the best twists work because it actually makes context within the context of the story they were telling. I've never seen a twist that's completely random and unrelated to the film's events that was actually any good.

The best twists are usually those where there hints dropped throughout the film that actually pay off in the end and you're like 'oh, that's right'. Like the Sixth Sense or even Saw. The Visit also has a really good twist as well.

As it relates to this movie, really, your enjoyment of it will really come down to how much you thought the "twist" worked or didn't work. Basically, this married couple who lead, seemingly, a perfect life are held hostage by this gunman, played by Pierce Brosnan, and their daughter's life, being taken care of by a sitter supposedly in cahoots with with the gunman.

The gunman forces the couple to perform a series of tasks or else he will call the sitter and tell the sitter to kill their daughter. Obviously, any caring parent would do just about anything to save their child's life.

So they concede and give in to his requests in order to ensure their daughter's safety. That's not necessarily as important as the fact as to why this man is forcing them to do this. The mystery behind his motivations is what drives the film forward.

Part of me thought that everything leading up to the 'reveal' was kinda lame. Because he's forcing them to do these things that, honestly, don't really even seem that risky until the climax where Brosnan's character asks Gerard's character to kill someone.

Everything prior to that, like I said, just isn't really that interesting. He's not really even asking them to do that much in all honesty. It'd be something completely different if he was asking more from them from the start, but it's pretty tame.

So that doesn't make the couple's situation any more stressful, because they're just forced to do some basic stuff. That was lame. I mean, at least the acting is strong, with Gerard Butler being the weakest link, but even he was still pretty good here.

Which brings us to the twist. It comes out that Butler's character has been having an affair with the wife of Tom, Brosnan, and that's why he did what he did, just to teach him a lesson. But, of course, it's not as simple as that.

When Neil and Abby come back home and find their daughter to be safe, it is revealed that Abby actually knew about the affair all along and she and Tom both planned out the events of the film because Abby wanted Neil to feel what she felt when she found out about the affair.

One of the film's themes is in regards to 'breaking a butterfly on a wheel', which is interpreted as meaning someone who puts an extraordinary amount of effort on something trivial or punishing someone completely disproportionately when compared to their crime.

But, to me, it still feels like way too much work for something so stupid. Not necessarily that it's stupid, but it makes Abby and Tom both look completely unlikable. And that's not what you should think, yes, he made you feel betrayed and abandoned, so fucking divorce him and take everything he has.

Don't put him through the hell of having to worry about his daughter's safety. Because, to me, involving your children in a fucked up revenge scheme is far worse than your husband having an affair.

Yea, nothing was ever gonna happen to their daughter, but Neil didn't know that. It's just fucked up to use the tease that your daughter might die just to teach an adulterer a lesson. Though, without that approach, you wouldn't have gotten the film we got, so it is what it is.

Plus and that's not even going into the fact that you can't plan this out perfectly. There's so many variables involved, so many things that could go wrong that it's sort of absurdly ridiculous that everything went so perfectly.

The acting is solid and all that, but the film doesn't really hit on many cylinders. I'd say that this is only slightly below average because I, honestly, hated the reveal of what actually happened, even if it somewhat made sense within its own context.