In brief: A powerful and well-written thriller that may not be for everyone.

Based on the novel by James Siegel
Adapted to screenplay by Stuart Beattie (Collateral, Pirates of the Carribean)
Directed by Mikael Håfström (I believe this is his U.S. debut.)

---Cast:
Clive Owen as Charles Schine
Jennifer Aniston as Lucinda Harris
Vincent Cassel as Philippe Laroche
Melissa George as Deanna Schine
RZA as Winston Boyko
Addison Timlin as Amy Schine
Tom Conti as Elliot
Xzibit as Dexter
Giancarlo Esposito as Detective Church

On June 16th I attended a research screening for Derailed. I had never heard about it previously, and had not been assigned to recruit for it, so I didn’t know anything about except what the brief description on the invitations said, which was that it was a thriller with Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston. I like both actors, so I asked to watch it.

It was GOOD.

Clive Own plays Charles Schine, a business executive with a beautiful wife and a daughter with Type 1 diabetes who finds a possible avenue for escape from the stresses of his life when he meets another executive, Lucinda, on the train to work. Lucinda, as it turns out, is also married, albeit to an absentee husband, and has a beautiful daughter of her own. The two spend some subsequent morning commutes in conversation, getting to know one another, and then decide to bury their with sex. But when they go to a seedy hotel, they are confronted by a terrifying gunmen who after robbing them, beats Charles and sexually assaults Lucinda in a scene that while not explicit, was so disturbing in the way it conveyed the terror of the act that I actually tried to look away as it unfolded, something I almost never do. I should caution the reader that while it is not explicit, and very short, if they cannot stomach such scenes, then this may not be the movie for them.

When the dust is settled, the two near-lovers, guilty over their attempted infidelity, and over their inability to stop the attack, decide to keep quiet, but then discover that the rapist, Philippe, is not just a common thug or mugger, but a criminal entrepreneur who wishes to blackmail the two for money. He knows that Charles and Lucinda were trying to cheat on their spouses, knows everything about them after stealing their wallets and cell phones, and what follows is a test of wills as Charles and Lucinda must try to keep one step ahead of Philippe in the hope of turning the tables against him.

The movie was very well-written, kept me on the edge of my seat, and never once made me want to look at the time. Vincent Cassel (the real-life husband of Monica Bellucci) creates a truly frightening villain that the audience truly hates, and who places the two leads into a predicament that seems impossible to escape from. Charles and Lucinda, after all, can’t go to the cops without their spouses finding out about their near-infidelity, and Lucinda doesn’t want to lose her daughter. Charles doesn’t want to destroy his marriage, and the only money he has to give to Philippe is earmarked to buy a portable dialysis machine for his daughter. Clive Owen, while a likeable actor, was a bit hard to take in this role, since he’s such a physically imposing-looking specimen that it was kind of hard to accept the instances in which the more slight-looking Philippe physically accosts him. On a similar note, while Aniston makes a surprising as a sexy fatale, it is difficult to see Charles cheating on a wife as beautiful as Melissa George. But these are minor quibbles. Somewhat more substantial is the way the film telegraphs the outcome of an attempt by Charles to intimidate Philippe when Philippe agrees to meet him to accept extortion money, to say nothing of the silliness with which Charles at this point still thinks of Philippe as a small-time mugger, when the film had made clear by now that he’s a criminal entrepreneur.

But for the most part, the film holds up well, with Hitchcock-like twists and turns and moral dilemmas worthy of Rod Serling. This is a top-notch suspense film that wisely avoids most of the usual clichés and pitfalls associated with the genre. The diabetes of Charles’ daughter Amy, for example, which I was sure was a setup to figure into the climax in some way, ala Rory Culkin’s asthma in Signs, turned out to be merely incidental to the story. And while there is another act of violence in the middle of the film, and another at the climax, these are more along the lines of the “conventional” violent acts viewers may be accustomed to, and are not gratuitous, but legitimate parts of the story that move it along, with the majority of the viewer’s emotional reaction coming from the manner in which the movie is created, and from the unfolding of the story.

If you like moral dilemma type-thrillers like say, Collateral, then you’ll definitely like Derailed.

There's a trailer here. I'm pleased that unlike so many trailers today, it does NOT give away too much; it just gives the basic setup of the story.

A movie about Ottawa's Light Rail