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Mike (Matt Long) is sort of the homecoming king in his little hometown
in midwestern USA, the former football star who has ... gone to college. So
for this year's homecoming festivities, Mike brings his new girlfriend
Elizabeth (Jessica Stroup) along - much to the dismay of his local ex Shelby
(Mischa Barton), who's still head over heels in love with him. Eventually
though, on their first evening, Mike and Elizabeth get seperated, and by
pure accident, Shelby runs her over by car. Now this is Shelby's big chance, as
she takes Elizabeth back to her house, slowly nurses her back to health
but also makes her her prisoner, keeps her out of everyone else's sight,
spreads rumours that Elizabeth wanted to leave Mike, and tries to get back
together with him in Elizabeth's stead, even if he refuses her time and
again. Elizabeth makes numerous attempts to escape Shelby's clutches,
but to no avail (also due to her quite serious injuries), and as if to
disquieten her, she finds evidence that Shelby has indeed killed her
mother she claims she has nursed to death. The situation gets more and
more desperate for Elizabeth, especially after Shelby cold-bloodedly kills
a cop (Michael Landes) who has managed to find Elizabeth, by now all tied
up in the basement. Eventually though, Mike finds out what's going on
rather by accident, and he rushes to Elizabeth's rescue and saves her from
crazy Shelby, whose head Elizabeth beats to a pulp in the showdown. What
a waste of time! This could have been an ok psycho thriller with an
interesting if not totally original story (that could have done with some
doctoring though because the main point - why does homicidal Shelby keep Elizabeth alive? - is never explained) and
with a few swipes at allegedly
wholesome smalltown USA. As it is though, it's nothing of all that, it's
pretty much a hardly disguised rip-off of the (slightly overrated) Misery,
with Mischa Barton proving above everything else that she is no Kathy
Bates - sure, Ms Barton goes through the motions, but does so without any
real conviction, and fails to create any sympathies with her character on the
audience's behalf that are vital for a film like this to work. Also,
Jessica Stroup as damsel-in-distress is less than compelling, but in all
fairness, her goodie-two-shoes role is written way too flatly to give her
much room to develop her character. The worst of the bunch though is Matt
Long, whose acting throughout is nonexistent and who is so uncharismatic
one wonders how any woman could ever fall for him, let alone two. The
actors and actresses though are not the only ones who let down the film,
it should be pointed out that everybody also has to fight against a rather
lame script that does away with all the subtleties a story of this kind
could offer, and leaves all the characters disappointingly one-dimensional
when they could have developed in so many ways ... Another big let-down
of the film is the directorial effort: Apparently Morgan
J.Freeman is totally unable to create something even remotely resembling a creepy atmosphere, and his
depiction of smalltown USA with its cheesy homecoming rituals is done in
such a picture postcad style one wonders if the man has invested any
thoughts into his script apart from the purely functional - and even for a
functional or hack directorial job, Homecoming is rather lame. Better
stay away from this one!
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