Derailed (2005)

The last twenty minutes of this movie are really good and extremely intriguing; the first hour and a half were almost nauseating. In Derailed, two business executives are caught at the beginning of an affair and blackmailed by a violent criminal who tries to take control of their entire lives. As a result of the beginning of this film, I never plan on watching the movie again, but when it was all said and done, it was not as horrible as it originally seemed. The acting in this film is terrific. Jennifer Aniston does a great job in shedding her familiar Friends role, and really does an excellent job of portraying a character with a great deal of depth. Vincent Cassel plays the antagonist, and he does so admirably. I have seen him in several films recently, including Eastern Promises, and he continues to impress. Clive Owen, as always, is amazing. This is the third of his films that I have seen recently, and in each one, he does a terrific job. He may have the single best voice of any actor currently working in Hollywood. The last twenty minutes of Derailed was really good; there were some really interesting twists that I did not see coming, and some really creative writing saved this film. Despite the great finale, this film had numerous problems. To begin with, Derailed starts with an ambiguous flash-forward from the end; I cannot forgive a movie when it does shit like this. It makes the audience wonder the whole time whether or not what happened really happens, and who it happens to and why; in a lot of ways, it ruins the viewing experience. Additionally, as I mentioned before, the first 3/4ths of this film are not at all what I expected, and are really dark. Had I known better what to expect, I might have liked this film a bit more, but it comes from so deep in left field that it was really hard to enjoy. My wife watched this movie with me, and while she liked the end as well, I think she disliked the rest of it more than I did. I guess I am glad to have seen this film, but I will never watch it again. I give Derailed 2 and a half stars.