Asunder

Well, the movie looks good, too good. What was on screen was just a modern upper-middle class black experience, packaged as a psycho-thriller and it all seems like playacting. Almost every character and setting, for that matter, looks so handsome and beautiful that it was shot as not to portray anyone or anything with a minimum of real life flaws or imposing reality. The Director tries way too hard to portray Blacks as successful "American Dream" types that it seems that they lose their soul along with this movie on their way to the top.

It is so glossy and has that TV patina of plastic, passing as a suspenseful neo-noir movie and it is simply all packaged so slick that it feels like a trip to a shopping mall. These people are so beautiful and so successful and so bland (even the villain) that everyone seems to move and talk in slow motion and deliver some really uninspired, vapid dialog along with unrealistic stalking and predatory behavior.

The movie has such a gloss to it one cannot ever get pass the shine and believe anything that is going on here. These people seem to wear their success as a designer distraction and underneath bares a barely beating heart. It is all so pretty and pretty awful.

I had been waiting to see this movie for two years because made it to some theaters and university auditoriums (with Tim Reid hosting). I rushed to Blockbuster to rent it because I saw it was coming out on Feb 11th. It was worth the wait! Blair Underwood, Michael Beach, and Debbi Morgan were outstanding! It was kind of like a black "Fatal Attraction!" It was so nice to see a black film portraying "well-to-do couples" and yet they were still keeping it real. Tim Reid's direction was superb in how he showed that something so innocent as four couples (who are all best friends)going to the fair can turn into a fatal and horrifying experience and create a "deadly domino" effect that can threaten and ruin relationships as well as lives. I thought the storyline was great. I also liked how Blair Underwood's character (Chance) evolved from docile to demented and how Michael Beach(Michael) explained that Chance once had a "dark-side" and once he met and married Roberta, it calmed him down. All the main characters had their crosses they had to bear. I also loved the town-setting, scenery, music and cinematography. Kudos to Tim Reid, Blair Underwood, and Daphne Maxwell-Reid for taking author Eric Lee Bowers and putting it on screen.

Chance Williams (Blair Underwood) loses his wife and child in an accident. At first, he appears to be grieving normally enough, staying with his friends Michael and Lauren (Michael Beach and Debbi Morgan) for a few days for support.

Chance soon begins to act a bit odd, taking on a completely different personality. His friends try to help but find themselves drawn into the vortex of Chance's disintegrating sanity.

ASUNDER is a drama for the most part, with each character revealing personal secrets that could ruin their lives. It's during the final act when the movie shifts into full horror-thriller mode.

Definitely worth watching. Especially the last 20 minutes...

This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen! I think it played down to the audience. When, at the beginning, Michael Beach's character makes the comment that Chance is crazy, it just went straight down hill from there. I love Blair Underwood----no question, but I think someone must have had something on him to get him to play this part. The ONLY saving grace in this movie was Debbie Morgan. We need to see more of her. She rises above the material, and she is one of my favorite actors, but even with a life preserver and the National Guard she couldn't rescue this fiasco. I rented this movie and I wanted my money back. I know lots of people put lots of effort into it, but they'd have done better studying the masters before trying to, off the top of their heads, do a Psychological Thriller. Stanley Donen, Peter Godfrey, Stanley Kubrik, Phillip Noyce, Renny Harlin, and of course Alfred Hitchcock would have been great places for the director to start his study. I looked at this movie twice to make sure I had the right impression. That's time I'll never get back.

Yikes!! 'Asunder' packs a serious punch --- I found myself clutching my chest, in great fear for the characters pursued by Chance (Blair Underwood, who proved long ago, in 'Just Cause', how scary he can be!), for the bulk of the film. Adrian Lyne's 'Fatal Attraction' no longer holds the trophy for this scorned-lover-comes-back-for-revenge-genre. See it --- you won't be disappointed.