Review of Derailed (2005) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

This is quite a violent movie, with dark themes obviously. There are a few plot twists present which I found myself quite shocked at and yet again its another movie that starts off appearing to be quite mundane and boring even, before the story really takes off. Its almost more shocking, particularly when the twists become apparent, because of how plausible and how run of the mill the story starts off as. I think including the aspect of their daughter being ill added to the sense of vulnerability for the Schine family, who seem like quite an ordinary, upper middle class family. Whether or not you feel a great deal of sympathy for what happens as it first appears, given the fact that Charles was seemingly happy to have an (even if short lived) affair, is up to you but the extent to which the criminal rapist tries to control him by threats and issuing multiple demands is quite extreme and shocking, particularly the way that he manages to manipulate other members of his family, unbeknowst to them. This makes the movie really quite gripping, as you wonder whats going to happen next.

I'm not particularly a fan of Jennifer Aniston as an actress - she does ok when appearing in romantic comedy movies and suchlike - in this movie she was about average I'd say, if that makes sense. I didn't feel her acting was especially awful, she can put in an alright performance but I just/equally somehow feel like she never puts in a particularly noteable performance. Her character is good and I felt that the movie was well scripted.

Clive Owen is well known for appearing in such drama/action movies and for playing gritty roles such as that of Charles, who seems pretty mild mannered at first but certainly his character is tested to the extremes and he rises to the challenge, appearing as very determined while also being in reality rather a desperate father and husband and having to play the role as a successful businessman as well. I thought that Clive did a good job portraying Charles - I have no criticism of his performance, that I can think of.

Vincent Cassel gives quite a haunting performance as the psychopathic criminal or token bad guy of the movie, a man known only as 'LaRoche'. He comes across as very sinister and unpredictable, the interaction between Clive Owen and Vincent Cassel as their respective characters is pretty good. Also present in the movie are hip hop stars Xzibit (known for presenting the US MTV show Pimp My Ride) and Rza. Xzibit plays one of LaRoche's henchmen, Dexter and RZA plays a friend of Charles, Winston. There is quite alot of strong/heavy language used, so if your easily offended by that then this should be avoided, although I suppose it adds to the grittiness of the movie, if that makes sense. The effects are quite good and its very gripping once the story really hots up, as it were. As far as sex scenes go, there is very few, only the key scene where the rapist criminal first appears, for obvious reasons, which makes for uncomfortable viewing, although there isn't any full frontal nudity.

Overall I thought this movie was quite gripping and I enjoyed the plot twists, which I didn't really see coming (although I seem to be someone that often doesnt see plot twists coming in general, I suppose). I thought the script was good and the characters were decent, although perhaps one or two parts of the story may seem a little over the top but generally it was pretty good, quite gripping and watchable, if you don't mind the strong language and violence, so yes I'd recommend this movie, particularly to fans of Clive Owen.