DERAILED

Just seeing the pretty cast on the poster for Derailed made me jump up and say, "Well, alright! Twist my arm! I'll see it!" I purposely didn't read anything about the movie, but just knew it was a thriller, and that this was Jennifer Aniston supposedly stretching her wings as an actress post-Friends (and post-nasty-breakup-with-Brad). Pairing her up with hot Brit Clive Owen could only help. But was this the movie for them? After the credits rolled, Derailed left me with an overall feeling of ick.

Clive plays Chicago business exec Charles Schine, a man with a beautiful wife and daughter, and a strangely wobbly American accent. Things should be perfect, but he doesn't kiss his wife goodbye on the way to work anymore, and his angelic daughter is fighting diabetes (in the traditional dollar-sucking American way). Charles is weary, and so it is no surprise that he oggles cute and sassy Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston) on the train into the city. Witty banter and more oggling turns into a lunch date, then a hesitant trip to a cheap hotel room.

At this point, Derailed is doing okay, just meandering along at its own pace, so it is as much a shock to the audience as it is to the characters when a thug breaks into the hotel room as the two are getting busy, and beats Charles to a bloody pulp and rapes Lucinda! Dear lord. Did it need to be so graphic? I wanted to flee the theater at this point, and probably should have. But by benefit of staying, the shock of that scene slowly deteriorates at the movie itself slowly deteriorates into a more typical revenge thriller.

Turns out that the thug La Roche (Vincent Cassel, the suave French thief from Ocean's Twelve) isn't quite finished with Charles yet. Charles and Lucinda don't go to the police, because they are both married, and the fact that they were in a hotel room together is a bit hard to explain. Lucinda thinks the repercussions of her husband and family finding out is worse than being raped (ohhhhh-kay). So Charles goes along with her decision, and that is just the beginning. La Roche now has the power, and repeatedly demands larger and larger sums of money from Charles (emptying the savings for his angelic daughter's health care!), and his life spirals into a deeper hell. From there on, Derailed careens into not-too-surprising twists and turns, replete with the ubiquitous multiple endings and a violent finale.

You would think that this movie would have been good. At least, it should have been good. Director Mikael Håfström made the Oscar-nominated Swedish film Evil (Ondskan) a couple years back, which probably made it easy for him to get actors the caliber of Owen, Cassel, and, yes, Aniston (Jen, I'm willing to give you another try!). Derailed tries to be a clever film noir mystery, and occasionally succeeds with "ah-ha!" moments. But those moments are quickly shattered with bouts of shocking violence (both physical and verbal) to make you cringe and think, "Was that really neccessary?" Ultimately, and unfortunately, Derailed is too sloppy, mean, and predictable to be worthy of all of the talent involved.