Jennifer Aniston remains her Friends character here; she is just behaving in some difficult to understand ways. Why would this smart, classy, charming character consort with a killer who comes up with the sleaziest, most dangerous shakedown scam possible? Love? Pretty hard to believe. But no other clues or explanations are provided. And why do the two criminal masterminds do such a poor job of hiding their tracks? They continue using the same locations to conduct their shakedowns. Further, the shakedowns rely on some pretty risky assumptions: a) that they will be able to knock-out but not kill or seriously debilitate the victim; b) that the victim will not fight to the death; c) that the victim will not do something to attract the attention of others, e.g., yell out the window; and d) most preposterously, the victim will not go to the police on his own. Movies of this type often rely on such shaky leaps, but here it is just too much. Clive Owen's character would rather jeopardize the life of his daughter (the payoff money was earmarked for her medical care) and cover up the murder of his friend just so that Jennifer Aniston's character doesn't have to face the possibility of divorce. No way. Meanwhile, Jennifer Aniston's character has no protection other than these assumptions. Once the scam has started, she has to sit at an office, pretending to be someone she is not, and where the victim knows where to find her, for days, even weeks. She must have spent every day sweating. When the victim came to see her, it would only have taken one co-worker to call her by her real name, and the scam would have been up. And if the victim had had the good sense to go to the police, Aniston would have been a sitting duck. Really a poorly put together scam, resulting in a rather disappointing movie.
Review of Derailed
