|
The Resident
| Released |
11 March 2011 |
| Director |
Antti J. Jokinen |
Starring
|
Hilary Swank, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Christopher Lee, Lee Pace |
| Writer(s) |
Antti Jokinen, Robert Orr |
Producer(s)
|
Cary Brokaw, Guy East, Simon Oakes, Nigel Sinclair |
| Origin |
United Kingdom, United States |
| Running Time |
91 minutes |
| Genre |
Horror, drama, thriller |
| Rating |
16 |
|
|
Resident Drivel.
For a two-time Oscar winner, Hilary Swank isn’t really that famous is she? No doubt she’s a fine actress but apart from her Oscar winning roles in Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, what’s she actually done?
Well poor old Hilary sure does know how to pick ‘em, stinkers that is! She was in The Core, a stunningly dull sci-fi movie and The Black Dahlia, a barking mad Brian De Palma film. Then there was The Reaping, a universally slated horror movie and the dreadful ‘Oirish’ comedy P.S. I Love You, which should see her banned from ever coming back to the Emerald Isle (can we ban Cecelia Ahern while we’re at it?). Even Oscar bait such as Amelia and Conviction failed to garner much love from the critics.
With The Resident, Swank has decided to take more control of her career and she’s credited as an executive producer as well as taking the lead. Surely this should improve the quality of the project? Swank plays Juliet, an ER Doctor who is anxious to leave her apartment after breaking up with her adulterous husband (Lee Pace). After viewing a couple of dumps, she comes across a place that seems too good to be true. It’s a massive apartment that’s really cheap and even has a dishy landlord Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) thrown in for good measure. Sure, the place makes odd noises at night and Max’s creepy Granddad (Christopher Lee) is the only other tenant, but she seems to have landed on her feet.
However it quickly emerges that Max isn’t all he seems and has a dangerous obsession with her, which involves him observing her from the spy-holes he’s specially built into the apartment.
There was a point in the press screening when those present decided to stop watching this as a standard thriller and to instead enjoy the film as an unintentional comedy instead. The point arrived when Max breaks into Juliet’s bathroom and starts to perv on her toothbrush. Yes, that’s right, her toothbrush! Everything after that was met with loud guffaws of laughter.
That pretty much set the tone for the rest of this laughably poor film. Morgan, bless him, does his best with such an outlandish performance that you sense he’s struggling to keep from laughing at times. Swank is capable, but slightly dull in the lead and is not even a particularly sympathetic figure. The great Christopher Lee goes around growling and glowering until he loses interest halfway through. This is a clichéd, bog standard slasher movie with all the predictable conventions of the genre trotted out as if they were working from a playbook.
So chalk another stinker up to Hilary’s CV, you should only go to this for the unintentional laughs.
-
Jim O’Connor |
