Fear is such a basic name, bland, unassuming. This movie could be about anything, it practically screams out at you. It really fits this movie, though, and I could not rename this if I tried. But it could've been named something like "the crazy dude" or something, cause that's really what it's got to offer.
Mark Wahlberg plays David, who is kinda the average mystery man. Tall dark and handsome, David is a mystery and there's nothing that girls like more in movies like this. Reese Witherspoon is playing a 17 year old girl who lives with her dad, brother in law, and stepmom. Everything is kinda awkward with this family unit, but minor conflicts that are abundant step aside once Marky Mark enters the picture. Reese W, playing Nicole, is just the whatever blond girl. A virgin, not super interested in men really, but full of pep and likability, she meanders along as the good girl you can easily watch until she is at a bar and spots David.
They lock eyes, and later when they first talk at a rave, David comes off as much deeper of a mystery. He seems like a good guy though, as he gets Nicole safely out of the rave when a fight breaks out. Then it's the slow dropping of the facade he put on for Nicole: he beats up her friend just for innocently touching her, he hits Nicole (seemingly accidentally) but there is doubt, Nicole's father has this really bad feeling about David, etc. You know what I just realized: this movie fits into that 90's genre I made up, the teen sex thriller. It's not the average one, cause it follows a innocent and likable female, but it is a twist on that 90's classic plotline.
Things go about as you expect and soon Nicole knows something is very wrong with David. But the problem here is David. Now I know that you should never over explain a character and sometimes it is enough to just have them act crazy, but there has to be something to make it make sense, cause otherwise you just watch as a character gets more and more extreme and you don't really know why. I mean we as the audience knew what the dad knew from day one: this guy's bad news. But we spend so long with David playing innocent that when he turns bad, it's like there is just zero explanation. It heavily relies on David just being super crazy and never once does it say, wait, why is he so fucking nuts?
The movie is very forgettable, not what I'd call good, and very popcorny for the most part. It's the kind of movie you'd watch with a potential girlfriend, so she'd cling to your arm during the tense parts, and you'd both feel awkward during the sex parts, but you'd hopefully make a good joke about it once it was over, then you'd feel awesome about yourself and wonder if maybe you were gonna get laid that night. I saw it....night before last. Yeah. August 7th. And I did get laid that night. So, maybe I owe that to Fear.
It's not the worst thing ever, but they also decided to litter the soundtrack with awful 90's music and the movie feels extremely dated. I know it's 20 years old, but I've seen 80's movies that aged better than this. It's going to continue to not age well, be very indicative of the era in which it was made, and be forgotten. But for trying, and the cast, it gets a solid 2 B movie stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment