Derailed
I heard all kinds of good things about Jennifer Aniston’s acting in this movie, so I was looking forward to seeing it (at least I thought the reviews were about this movie).
So there’s a guy (Clive Owens) who’s an executive in some advertising agency. He’s married, albeit not too happily, they’re a busy family and all, and they’ve got the daughter (pre-teenish) whose got cancer. Daughter needs a new kidney (or was it liver?) but her body has rejected 3 previous transplant attempts and so now they’re saving up their bucks for this new drug coming out that’s supposed to make those rejections not reject.
We see Clive as the committed married man, non-screwing-around type until (UNTIL) he accidentally meets with Jennifer (Lucinda in the movie) because he’s on a train and realizes he has no money and she offers to pay for his ticket before he gets booted off.
Now comes the affair. Both off to a hotel, but she’s feeling too guilty about it, calls it off until they drive a little farther to a seedier hotel, and then they decide they’ll do it after all.
They’re just starting to get into it (whole bunch of necking, laying on top of each other, undoing clothing – not quite anything happening yet) when someone breaks into their hotel room with a gun, steals their stuff, and smacks the crap out of Clive and rapes Jennifer.
He wakes up from the beating feeling guilty for Jennifer’s situation but she doesn’t want the cops involved in this because then her husband will find out she was going to have an affair and will leave her and take her daughter.
BTW, the movie was pretty damned slow moving up until this point.
Then comes the blackmail. Bad rapist guy wants $10,000, Clive gets it for him so that nobody will find out what happened (he’s already told everybody that his beat up face was due to a mugging). He goes to Jennifer (after looking up her office address on the internet) and meets with her in the reception area of her office. Clue #1 – meets in the reception area.
She still doesn’t want anything done due to marriage situation and lets him know that she’s now had an abortion, due to the rape. He’s really got the guilties now.
Bad guy again contacts him but wants $100,000 to go away. Well Clive is just not gonna pay it. The only big bucks he’s got is the money they’ve been saving for years for their daughter’s cancer medicine. So bad guy shows up at his house, establishing a friendship with the wife and daughter by pretending he’s a work buddy.
So he decides he’s gonna scare the bad guy by having his work mail clerk buddy (formerly in prison and knows what it takes to scare someone off) scare the guy off for a measly $10,000. They’re one step ahead of the game, getting ready with the gun and a knife when the bad guy shows up at the car and shoots mail guy in the head.
Now our pal Clive has to dispose of mail clerk’s body and car. The police somehow think of Clive as a suspect. The policeman was a good buddy of former prisoner/mail clerk and is determined to get whomever killed him.
Clive’s gotta get the $100,000 to the bad guy – especially since he is now threatening Jennifer with a gun, so he pays up.
However, Clive goes to her office to meet with her because he’s decided to go to the law about the situation, only to find that when he asks reception for Lucinda, it’s a totally different woman who comes out. Hmmm, remember the girl I met with here in reception the other day? Oh yes, the temp who was here for a couple of weeks but is now gone.
Alrighty then, now he’s got to check that train where he first met Jennifer. He now has to follow and see what’s happening. Oh, Jennifer’s got another guy on the hook? Jennifer’s meeting and kissing the bad guy/rapist? What’s going on here? More following ensues.
Clive breaks into the hotel room with the newest guy to get sucked into the scam. Shooting. Bad guy is shot, bad guy’s buddy is shot. Even Jennifer is shot and dies.
Clive doesn’t get sent to jail for all this. He lets the police know the story and he ends up having to do some community service, teaching in one of the prisons.
Ho, guess what? Who’s still alive and residing in the prison where our hero is teaching? Why it’s the bad guy. OMG, just Clive’s luck. Now the bad guy is threatening his family again. But bad guy, it wasn’t an accident my community service was in this prison. Stab, twist, aaarrgh. Bad guy’s dead this time.
Clive goes home to his loving wife and daughter.
Ok, not a bad movie, but would have been better if we hadn’t already discussed the fact that the twist would be that Jennifer Anniston was part of the scam long before we saw it.
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idiotonastick
Minna
Dave Barker
Maria
just another
Female, taken, fire, Sagittarius, Monkey, Toronto, two kids, one grandson, IT.
55
is the new 30. I want the world to close their mouths when they’re eating or chewing gum. If they don’t, I want to elbow them in the face.
What a strange movie. So are you suppose to be happy that Clive got revenge at the end? Cause he doesn’t seem all that innocent either.
Well Thanks for saving me from watching another predictable movie.