Review of Side Effects (2013) by Mike C — 09 Jan 2014

Single White Female meets Primal Fear meets The Usual Suspects. Damn. How many twists and turns can a guy fit into a 105 minute movie? Evidently a lot. I can't say a whole lot without spoiling the many twists, but this goes from a medical drama to a legal drama to something else. Honestly, too much for me.

Soderbergh is well-established with some interesting films to his directing credits. There is a certain style to the movie (evidently the use of a RED camera), including the music. Beyond that, Rooney Mara is pretty solid. Didn't see her in the Dragon flicks (I had already watched the foreign versions), so this was my introduction to her. Kinda sexy, and the ending could have been really sexy. Jude Law is generally effective. Thought Zeta-Jones and Tatum were probably not the greatest pics but whatever.

Really thought it was a neat flick about 70 percent of the way through. I liked the medical stuff - could have been a neat movie about side effects and the legal responsibilities of patients and companies, etc. Then I kind of liked the secondary stuff as it began to unfold. Then it just went over the top a bit. It wasn't necessarily implausible for the first two-thirds. The rest was borderline silly.