Sorry but no. A third of it was good, but then the mess starts. It’s a really simple story, seen hundreds of times really. Jack (Lou Diamond Phillips) alone on his way when a storm hits and he loses control of his vehicle and crashes. He finds shelter in the home of a crazy man, and since a big big storm is coming he can’t leave. Nothing original, there’s plenty of plots like this, still that alone wouldn’t mean much, something good can come out of old stories.. at first it seemed like this could be the case, but it lost itself very very quickly.
What’s not too bad: I suppose that Jack found shelter at a remote cabin but I don’t know how he got there: I only see him waking up asking where he is. He meets young Willy (Mia Sara) and her husband, older and crazy Lyle (Charles Dance), whose welcome is a rifle pointed at him. At first LDP acts all scared and surprised, like any normal person would, and I liked that. I kind of liked the storm too, the rain noise, because it created a sort of claustrophobic atmosphere that served its purpose. Willy’s character was probably the one described better, because she matter-of-factly tells Jack that she had been given to Lyle when she was 13 because her father could not pay (so he sold his own daughter) and she married Lyle and has lived alone with him in that cabin ever since, scared of him, like a prisoner in her own home, but also dependent on him for nearly everything. I think that it was right that she screamed when he got hurt and cried hysterically when he died, because he was all she had in a long time, he was her husband and in a way her everything.
That’s pretty much it.
What I didn’t like: first-the absurd affair. From the beginning you just know that Jack and Willy will end up together, not even a little doubt. I kind of hoped for a moment that they might surprise me doing what’s right and meaningful, but no, they kiss and shower and have sex… Mia is undoubtedly beautiful here but I always think that nudity is only a cheap trick to cover the emptiness of the movie. With this movie, I rest my case.
Just imagine, her crazy husband has gone out for a while, but there’s still a storm, it’s not like he might be gone for long, and what happens? She opens Jack’s door then goes outside and has a shower..waiting for him to come… the stupidest thing ever. Even worse, they get interrupted there but the movie couldn’t end without making it clear that they have sex and therefore have to leave together ( :-/ ) and it was even worse, because it almost seems like she went from an aggressive man to another. I’m not saying Jack forces her, no no, but it seems like he does it to claim her as his own over Lyle’s. Plus this is no romance because he might very well be the only man she has talked to in years since she married at 13 and Lyle’s not exactly social!
Second-Jack’s character becomes weird pretty soon, trying to act cool and sort of compete with Lyle, which would make more sense if Lyle wasn’t an old guy with lots and lots of weapons, and then his general behaviour, flirting with Willy when it’s pretty obvious that it means risking his very life, and shouting at him in rage but then doing nothing about it, and his attitude towards Willy like: chose me or him, or something like that.
The storm scenes were not very cured, at a certain point it breaks all the house windows and yet it doesn’t seem to do much else; when Jack goes out he has to come back because he can’t walk and can’t stand in all that mud, that’s all. One other thing I didn’t like: Jack presses Lyle between the truck and a fallen tree and Lyle screams in pain and rage, but when Jack frees him Lyle is just as good as new, not even a little pain it seems.
One more thing, the whole ending. The storm’s gone, Lyle tells him he’ll drive him out of there but Willy tells Jack that if he goes with him Lyle will kill him (who knows why, other than how crazy he is) then they kiss and Lyle sees them so now it’s for sure that he wants to kill him. It’s a crossbow-vs-rifle match (yep, for real) and Jack hurts him twice while Lyle never injures him which seems kind of silly since he’s been using weapons for a long time while Jack the day before wasn’t even able to load the crossbow and had only fired a weapon ‘a couple of times’. Anyway, after that Jack takes his rifle but Lyle has another weapon so Jack shoots him. Willy screams for a while then she wants Jack to bury him; they should go away now but Lyle has the keys of the truck so they go back for them but Lyle’s gone: it seems like two arrows and a rifle shot are nothing for him. They start shooting at each other (all the bear-traps on the floor were more boring/annoying than scaring honestly), Jack is injured, until they end up face to face. Jack’s weapon is empty, Lyle has his rifle pointed at Jack’s belly… and then nothing. He lowers it and walks away, and a few seconds later he’s found dead, sitting on his own chair… so what, he knew he was going to die in the next ten seconds so he let Jack live? How, why, how absurd is that?!?
Jack and Willy go away using Lyle’s truck, and it has to climb uphill and when it gets bogged down in the mud but Jack keeps pushing the gas pedal and making a face like he was actually pushing the truck himself, and miraculously the wheels come out of the holes they created and they can drive away ( !! :-/ seriously? )
Dance is a great actor, but I thought he was wasted here making a redneck accent when his own is so good; of course it would have made no sense here, but still.
All in all, it’s not a movie I’d watch again, no.
ITA preso in trappola
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