Review of Personal Effects (2009) by Ryan H — 04 Mar 2011

Starts out great and made me believe that Ashton Kutcher can actually be a character actor. He was awkward and not himself. The film follows an interesting story about two people who are grieving over the loss of people in their family through murder.

Personal Effects could have been great, if David Hollander was a good writer/director. There are so many things that are good about this movie, and other things that just fall to being the typical movie.

I cared about the verdict, I was surprised by the mentally retarded guy in the end. However, I hated the love affair between Kutcher and Pfeiffer. Can anyone explain to me why you can't have a connection with the opposite sex without having the cliche love story thrown in? And the worst part is, when these two come together they don't even have a warm embrace, it's strictly physical.

Yeah, I'm believing there's actual love there. Hey, Hollander! You have a great film here that has potential! Don't forget about your characters and have some balls to actually do what you want with it! Towards the end, Kutcher's character loses everything about who he is.

But even through the awful story between Kutcher and Pfeiffer, and the horrible dialogue between the two, and the cliche dancing scene with Kutcher on the side and Pfeiffer is dancing and smiling at him, the movie still made me care at times.

I still wanted to see Clay connect with Kutcher, which doesn't really happen. The movie just fizzles out in the end. "By the way, I shot him because I never learned anything and now I'm in prison.

How did I get the bullets? Damned if I know." So aggravating to know the potential in this film and see it get destroyed by a talentless hack of a director.