Lost Blueprint

LOST BLUEPRINT: Serious, slanted, fictional journalism

4.30.2006

LuLu LaRue With Your Movie Review

by LuLu LaRue
Movie Reviewer

Movie: "Derailed"

OK, if you don't want to know the ending of this movie, stop reading.

This movie is so dumb I had to wait to the end just to see how dumb a movie it could possibly be. Why is there enough money in the world to make dumb movies and not enough money in the world to fund the public school system?

This movie is about one big con. But the con artists are not too bright because they just run the same con over and over in the exact same places. Yeah, I know. What kind of dumbass con artist do you have to be when you decide to do the same thing in the same place? I thought the point of running a con on someone was to get away with something and then get the hell outta dodge.

Anyway, Rachel Green is the bait and some guy I've seen a million times before and is supposed to be French is the lead con guy and a rapper guy is the other con guy. They set up seemingly rich businessmen. Rachel seduces them to a cheesy hotel room and then French guy breaks in and does some DeNiro-In-"Taxi" thing and then French guy terrorizes and blackmails the businessman until the businessman forks over $120,000.

They have the routine down pat, so apparently they've done this many times by the time they meet up with Clive Owen, who, though he plays a doofus, is still really hot. What the con artists don't get is that Clive is not a man to be fucked with and so he seeks his revenge.

Seeking revenge means going to the exact same place where he met Rachel Green in the first place and then following her around while she hangs with some other doofus businessman doing the exact same things she did with Clive.

Clive ends up killing everyone, with a spectacular fuck you for the French guy in the laundry room of a prison at the end, and also gets all his money back. It's a good thing he got all that money back in the end, too, because his daughter has some form of diabetes that requires major moola in order to treat. Lucky they have that subplot in the movie because then we can excuse Clive for breaking out into terminator mode and blowing everyone away.

In addition to con artists who remain firmly planted in their comfort zones, this movie also has other annoying inconsistencies. For example, how does an advertising executive that works all the time and lives out in some swank suburb suddenly learn how to not only hold a gun like a professional assasin, but to use it as though it is second nature for him? Does anger allow a person to suddenly become an adept gun handler?

Also, while Clive is sitting next to Rachel on the Metra on their commute into the Loop, he thanks her for paying for his ticket and says something along the lines of, "I'll pay you back. There's an ATM in Union." At first I wondered where Union was because they clearly showed a Metra train pulling into the Loop. But then I realized he meant "Union" as in "Union Station." This annoyed the hell out of me. What Chicagoan calls Union Station "Union"?

If you're looking for a con movie, don't get this one. Get "House of Games" or "The Spanish Prisoner" or "Nine Queens."