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When young couple Alyssa Milano & Justin Theroux go to see his
family for Thanks Giving Dinner, it doesn't take Alyssa (or the
audience) long to find out that something isn't quite right about that
family: They are phenomenally rich, but are domineered by their
conservative father, who neglects his one son (Nicholas Walker) - an
alcoholic, longing for his father's acceptance -, while putting his hope
into Theroux, who has distanced himself from the family long ago, but
his love is really with his third (& eldest) son John, who
unfortunately died years ago but who's still the pride of the family. To
poison the atmosphere even more, a trio of robbers (Ice-T, Tiny Lister,
Richard Danielson) breaks into the house, killing everyone but Theroux,
Milano & (as we are yet to find out) Walker, who all hid from the
criminals just in time. From their hiding-place, Milano & Theroux
soon hear that Walker is behind all this, & Theroux decides to fight
back & kill the gangsters, first strangling Danielson, then shooting
Tiny Lister when he goes after an escaping Alyssa Milano, finally
shooting Ice-T, but not until they had a friendly conversation,
revealing (to the audience) that not Walker but actually Justin Theroux
hired the killers in the first place - which Alyssa Milano soon has to
find out tha hard way, when we see her covering the dead bodies & he
accuses her that she destroyed his artwork, his masterpiece. He is then
about to kill her, too, until Nicholas Walker, badly wounded, comes out
of his hiding place & shoots him.
This movie could have been so much more than it is: it starts out as
something resembling a satire on the crumbling of the burgeoisie with
some potential, only to have this unveiled as just another random set of
soap opera trappings as the criminals enter the plot. From then on it's
rather routine cat-&-mouse thriller - even though Ice-T & Tiny
Lister make a good pairing, even having some funny dialogues -, until in
a surprise (or not so surprise) plot twist, the good guy (Theroux, not
terribly convincing as either good or bad guy) turns into the psycho,
for reason or reasons unknown.
The real letdown though is the female lead: but fault lies not so much the actress - Alyssa Milano actually looks great
& her facial expressions even match the proceedings most of the
times (which is pretty good for a Hollywood actress - especially
regarding that she learned her trade in the abysmal but long-running
sitcom Who's the Boss) - but her role,
which is perhaps the most passive, even anti-feminist treatmant of a
female lead since ... I don't know ... the 50's. She doesn't really do
much but shriek, run away & look frightened, and when she actually
kicks someone (that happens twice during the movie), it's just too
little too late. The passiveness of Milano's role comes as even more of
a surprise considering that she actually was co-executive producer of
this movie.
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