Secret Window

The Plot:

Mort Rainey (Depp), a writer just coming off of a troublesome divorce with his ex-wife, Amy (Bello), finds himself stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger (Turturro) who claims Mort stole his best story idea and just changed the ending. (From Yahoo Movies)

My Thoughts: (Reviewed by Big Pun)

I’m not sure what to say about Secret Window…mostly because I am not sure if I really liked it or not…I kinda hated it for a while….then it had me intrigued…and then I felt kinda disappointed at the end…I watched it with the Misses, and she sort of felt the same way…but after talking about it for a while we both reached the same conclusion…it’s a middle of the road movie…it was good, but not great…and not terrible…worth a rental, but sure glad we didn’t pay $8.75 to see it in the theatre…so, that’s what I am going with in this review….Secret Window is an OK movie…its just OK…nothing more….nothing less.

Alright, let’s break this down…first off, the film is based on a short story written by Stephen King entitled Secret Window, Secret Garden…I did not know this and when I saw that in the opening credits, it peaked my interest…I’m not a huge King fan, but still, it added some credibility…I mean, look at some of the great films his books have produced: Carrie, Misery, The Green Mile, Stand By Me, The Shining, Cujo, It, Children of the Corn, Christine and The Stand…well, Secret Window is a film in the King mold, but it doesn’t belong on that list…it’s a psychological thriller centered around a writer who’s life is falling apart.

Actor Johnny Depp stars as Mort Rainey, a quirky writer, who we learn in the opening scene is dealing with an unfaithful wife…a bit of a recluse, Rainey is holed up in his secluded cabin in the woods, struggling to cope with a pending divorce while putting together another book…the story begins to unfold when Rainey is visited by a creepy pilgrim looking guy who claims Rainey stole his best story and changed the ending…Rainey flat out denies it and claims to have the evidence to prove it….but this mysterious Shooter is determined to get his point across, stalking and terrorizing Rainey…killing the man’s dog, burning down his wife’s house, killing a town local and Rainey’s body guard…as Rainey begins to struggle with what is going on, we are left to question who is behind this and why?...is Rainey lying, did he steal the story?...is it the wife’s new boyfriend?...is this guy just a stalking crazy fan?...

The movie builds to this point in the story and then we get the typical thriller twist thrown in…all is not what it seems!...the signs are there in this film and if your paying attention, you can see it coming…that’s not to say that it isn’t fairly effective…it was actually this point in the movie that re-sparked my interest…up until the plot twist, I found the film a bit slow moving in the story telling and a little too interested in character building….but having said that, there is a payoff as we see where the characters end up…

Depp’s performance is certainly up to his usual standards…and I was pleasantly surprised to see Maria Bello in the film (starred in The Cooler, a film I really liked)…John Turturro is kind of a weird character actor, who is hit or miss with me…I didn’t care for him here…and Timothy Hutton is underused, but effective when on screen…and, well, Charles S. Dutton will always be Roc to me…

But overall, this is just an average thriller…the hook doesn’t totally grab you and throw you for a loop…the movie loses a lot of it’s steam as it lurches toward the ending…and that’s just it, the ending didn’t really get me…it kind of just left me unfulfilled…Johnny’s Depp’s final speech about ending’s being the best part…well, this film fell a little flat in the end.

The DVD features three very in depth featurettes that delve deep into the making of the movie, giving us a very detailed look at the process of adapting a book to film and developing scenes, etc…it really breaks the movie down almost on a scene by scene basis…there are some deleted scenes, including a slightly different ending, with commentary by director David Koepp…lastly, it features an animated story board sequence that is kind of interesting…I actually found myself more enamored with the extras on the DVD then the movie itself.

Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello, Charles S. Dutton, Timothy Hutton

Directed by: David Koepp

Rated PG-13

 

 

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