Review of Secret Window (2004) by Craig B — 25 Aug 2010

[i]Secret Window[/i] has at least one redeeming quality: Johnny Depp. He's the free toy that comes in every box. Unfortunately, digging through this box isn't worth the effort. The premise of the film is hokey, the action is stilted, and the nemesis (played by John Turturro) is a preposterous foil.

What does surprise me is Koepp's ham-fisted screenplay. Normally a competent screenwriter ([i]Mission: Impossible, Carlito's Way, Jurassic Park,[/i]) Koepp drops the pen on this one. The main plot twist hardly deserves the label.

I've seen obituaries with less obvious payoffs. Koepp doesn't trust his audience to spot nuance, so like a novice burglar, he leaves his fingerprints on every telling clue. Instead of the satisfaction you get from watching a good mystery unfold, you get handed the [i]Cliffs Notes[/i].

I don't know how much of the plot was inherited from the source material; I never read the King novella. However, as Koepp was both the director and the screenwriter on this stinker, he had ample opportunity to correct any of the schlockmeister's shortcomings.

Too bad he didn't.