Friday, November 16, 2007

The Reaping


One thing you should know about me... I absolutely adore Hilary Swank. I realize she isn't your usual Hollywood actress. She seems intelligent... maybe a little bit from the country... she is not your typical "beautiful..." but ever since Insomnia... I've loved her for whatever reason. She has earned a long leash on what she does that I will watch. Going into The Reaping I was fully prepared to like what what already proclaimed as a stinker at the box office. For the first 30 minutes, I thought... wait this isn't that bad... how could all these people be talking about this as a blight on Swank's resume? Then I hit the last hour...

Wow... what a mess. Swank plays a former ordained minister who lost her husband and daughter on a mission in Sudan. She since has thrown out the church and investigates "miracles" in an effort to disprove them. Swank gets a request for her and her friend's presence(Stringer Bell from The Wire baby! See pic) in a small town called Haven. Evidently, the river is flowing red with blood. This is allegedly supposed to be the start of the ten plagues... and this my friend is where our old buddy logic goes out the window.

David Morrissey plays a small town widower that helps out Ms. Swank in her investigation. Needless to say, his character knows more than is let on. This, is the same man who sold his soul to appear in the sequel to Basic Instinct.

Let's skip to the complete mess of an ending... I'd love to talk about the stupidity that follows in the plot, but I don't think I could properly put it into words. Wooooooow.

Anway... I think a much better topic would be the career of director Stephen Hopkins. Hopkins was key in directing the first couple of years of the great 24. He has brought you great work such as Ghost and the Darkness, Under Suspicion, and the Life and Death of Peter Sellers along with the imperfect films Judgement Night and ooooh Blown Away. Of course, he also brought us a pile o'shite altready with the big budget version of Lost in Space.

What an intriguing filmmaker! Part of me wishes I could listen to a commentary for The Reaping so Hopkins could explain what the hell was going on.

25/100

2 comments:

John DeCesaro said...

Judgement Night...imperfect? Maybe so, but a damn watchable film.

G said...

Yar it was lacking something. I enjoyed the idea of it, but something was missing...maybe it was Lou Diamond Phillips!