Obsessed

Obsessed (2009, Screen Gems)
Review

Oh boy this one is a real winner. Derek (Idris Elba) and Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles) have it all--he's an executive VP at a financial firm in LA, he's freakin' loaded, he drives a Benz, he's well liked and respected among his colleagues. She's a homemaker with the perfect husband and the perfect baby boy; she's planning on going back to college and, oh yeah, she looks like Beyoncé...so she's got that going for her in case their marriage would ever sail through some dire straights on the voyage of love. The movie opens with the family moving into their new, huge home (also perfect). Yawn.

Who could possibly stick a fly in this ointment?? Cue: Lisa (Ali Larter), a temp at Derek's firm, all around hot blond chick, and the Jason Bourne of stalkers (minus the fighting ability). First, she attempts to get her freak on with Derek after pushing him into a stall in the men's room during the no-spouses-allowed office Christmas party. Then she flashes him her sexy purple bra, garter belt and granny panties in his car. Why the director (Steve Shill) decided to put underwear bottoms comprised of about 14 square yards of fabric on Ali, the world may never know. She quits the firm and shows up at a resort where Derek and his coworkers are on a business getaway. First night, she drugs him and, presumably, sexually molests him...I don't know. The second night, she ODs on scrips intentionally...in the dude's hotel room...naked.

This is where Beyoncé finds out about the whole thing and, even though her hubby has done nothing wrong, she goes completely apeshit. This is also where she becomes intolerably annoying. One would think that if someone supposedly tried to kill herself in your spouse's bed, you would at least let him get a word in before kicking him out of the house, but no, she does not. I realize it looks bad, but at least let the man make some shit up for christsake!

This thriller was actually kind of fun until the proverbial shit hits the fan as described above. Knowles' character's reaction was so short-sighted that I started rooting for the psychopath, which was not the director's intention, it's fairly safe to say. Her kicking out of Derek also forces the viewer to suffer through a montage of him showing up at the house, picking up the kid, dropping off the kid, getting door slammed in face. Luckily, I had already finished my popcorn by this point in the movie, leaving me with a montage discomfort bag, should I have needed one.

Sharon is pretty much a searing bitch, but Beyoncé does a pretty good job of making it believable. Larter is suuuuuper creepy as the most interesting character in this film. Actually, most of the acting in the film is really, really good. Even Jerry O'Connell turns in a good performance as Elba's character's close friend and somewhat douchey business associate.

When I first saw a preview for this movie months ago, I thought it looked like it would have been worth the cost of admission. But that was when its trailer was sporting the tag "This film is not yet rated." When I found out that it had been made within the constraints of being PG-13, I completely lost interest. That is the main drawback of this one (yeah yeah, ok, the extraordinarily predictable plot is up there too) and with a proper R rating, there would have been some more wiggle room for the actors, director, and production staff to work. No, not just for the nudity that could have been, but for more realistic dialogue also--but what do I know? Most people probably aren't as vulgar as I am. I do know that there were four other people in the cinema with me and that all of us laughed at the movie a few times. Obsessed is not a comedy.

On a positive note, this movie does afford us the mother of all cat fights that sees Ali Larter plummeting two stories through our hero and heroine's dream home and crashing gently through a glass tabletop only to slasherfilmesquely pop her eyes open one last time before being squashed by a 400-pound chandelier.

I only went to see Obsessed because some dickface felt the need to threaten suicide atop a bridge on I-696, the main East-West freeway in suburban Detroit, closing the expressway for some eight hours and causing massive traffic back ups anywhere near it. (Unfortunately, I just read that the guy surrendered to police and did not carry out his lifelong ambition of splattering all over an interstate.) Anyway! I thought this movie would be better than sitting in a traffic jam for an hour and a half or more and I was right.

Be seein' ya,