Derailed is a movie that is hard to talk about without invoking some spoilers, however unintentional they may be. I'll therefore leave the spoiler warning on although none is intended.
The story starts with an encounter on a train and I'm sure you can name half a dozen movies starting this way without thinking hard*. This one quickly develops into a situation that brings to mind "Fatal attraction", similar, but not identical. Here, both are married. In the hotel room, when they are just about to get into the act, a mugger materializes, beating the man semi-unconscious and raping the woman. But the nightmare is not over, only just beginning. The crook begins to blackmail the man, repeatedly. Things turn nastier and nastier, with some rather violent deaths. There are also the usual main twist and twist-when-everything-appears-to-be-over, something pretty standard with thrillers.
This movie is quite tough to watch. Although the violence is not particularly visually graphic compared with many other movies, it's the abruptness and intensity of the psychopathic character portrayed by Vincent Cassel that's disturbing. We have of course seen him in many similar roles but here he really pulls all the plugs, going all out. The pain inflicted on Clive Owen's character is almost physically palpable.
Of the two twists I mentioned, the main twist is very easy to guess, at least for people familiar with the suspense thriller genre. The final twist is actually not bad, echoing the teasing opening scene, with a couple of red herrings thrown in. But then, one should also remember a golden rule about such things in a suspense movie, when they spare no pain in showing you a recurring motif object (e.g. the bottle of poison in "Gloomy Sunday") you pretty well know that the movie is not going to end until SOMETHING is done with it. I'll say no more.
My biggest beef with this movie is the extent to which you have to suspend your belief, and I am not in the least intolerant of plot holes. But for the things to happen in "Derailed" the way they do, the Chicago police force would have to be incompetent to a degree that is absolutely beyond belief.
While Jennifer Aniston's character is underdeveloped, which is not her fault, we do see some complexity in Clive Owen's character that is very passive initially, then driven gradually by anger down a path of no return. Owen delivered.
* Some examples are: Strangers on a train (1951), Notre histoire (1984), Before sunrise (1995), Anthony Zimmer (2005)
The story starts with an encounter on a train and I'm sure you can name half a dozen movies starting this way without thinking hard*. This one quickly develops into a situation that brings to mind "Fatal attraction", similar, but not identical. Here, both are married. In the hotel room, when they are just about to get into the act, a mugger materializes, beating the man semi-unconscious and raping the woman. But the nightmare is not over, only just beginning. The crook begins to blackmail the man, repeatedly. Things turn nastier and nastier, with some rather violent deaths. There are also the usual main twist and twist-when-everything-appears-to-be-over, something pretty standard with thrillers.
This movie is quite tough to watch. Although the violence is not particularly visually graphic compared with many other movies, it's the abruptness and intensity of the psychopathic character portrayed by Vincent Cassel that's disturbing. We have of course seen him in many similar roles but here he really pulls all the plugs, going all out. The pain inflicted on Clive Owen's character is almost physically palpable.
Of the two twists I mentioned, the main twist is very easy to guess, at least for people familiar with the suspense thriller genre. The final twist is actually not bad, echoing the teasing opening scene, with a couple of red herrings thrown in. But then, one should also remember a golden rule about such things in a suspense movie, when they spare no pain in showing you a recurring motif object (e.g. the bottle of poison in "Gloomy Sunday") you pretty well know that the movie is not going to end until SOMETHING is done with it. I'll say no more.
My biggest beef with this movie is the extent to which you have to suspend your belief, and I am not in the least intolerant of plot holes. But for the things to happen in "Derailed" the way they do, the Chicago police force would have to be incompetent to a degree that is absolutely beyond belief.
While Jennifer Aniston's character is underdeveloped, which is not her fault, we do see some complexity in Clive Owen's character that is very passive initially, then driven gradually by anger down a path of no return. Owen delivered.
* Some examples are: Strangers on a train (1951), Notre histoire (1984), Before sunrise (1995), Anthony Zimmer (2005)