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Derailed

Review By: Alexis Tuminello
AlexisTuminello@TheCinemaSource.com

“They never saw it coming.” Unfortunately everyone else did.

Derailed is almost two hours spent watching Charles Schine (Clive Owen) not catching on to the obvious and Jennifer Aniston not acting up to her own hype. Owen’s an advertising exec who’s fallen into the monotony of marriage when he meets kind stranger Lucinda (Aniston) on his train commute into the heart of Chicago. Derailed, get it? Play on words; train and then life askew, get it? Obvious I know. Anyway, one lunch is leading to more when a mugging gone too far screws up both their lives. Not beyond repair but beyond any resemblance to reality. The hooded man responsible for the upheaval is accented and evil Philippe Laroche (Vincent Cassel) who exhorts much mullah from Schine’s bank account to keep his mouth shut and his gun away.

That’s the entire plot. No really it is. Oh add in a sick daughter and that’s it. The opening scene of the story being set settles you comfortably in your seat but once the popcorn runs out you slouch down further when every turn leads to the same place. The attempt, I assume, is to keep you interested and entertained and at a really long shot guessing. (The end is pretty good though.) Owen as a panicky suburban husband is quite convincing. He is great as an easy target. However he is a handsome man. I’ll give him that. Can he act? You decide. This is the first film I’ve seen him in, so for all I know this could be the one character he knows how to truly inhabit. And that directly leads to the top-billed Jennifer Aniston and her first overly hyped film since NBC’s Friends. It’s nice to know she’s branching out since her million or more an episode career ended but I never thought she was a good actress when she played Rachel Green. In Derailed she simply comes across as bland. Maybe her next film with her new man Vince Vaughn will be better.

There is a redeeming aspect to this film and he is French actor Vincent Cassel. First he has an accent – I’m already sold on that alone. Second he’s a bad guy – can I ask for anything more? He may not be as good looking as Clive Owen but he is a better actor. He is perfect as the slimy career criminal low life pulling all the strings. This is Cassel’s first big budget Hollywood blockbuster and there is something appealing about his presence that makes me want to see him in another big budget American movie merely so I can see if the screen presence carries over. ...