The Resident

What makes a movie to be "necessary" is a to attend to what is designed for: to entertain, to inform, to whatever is the idea. On the other hand, sometimes we face things like "The Resident". In theory, a nice thriller about a woman scared that someone can be going inside her house. But when it comes to the movie itself, what we can see is a festival of clichés, a writer trying - without success - to fool ourselves for 5 minutes and then releasing the whole story in one scene. And after that, all the scary elements are gone and it all becomes a bloodthirsty silly horror film (with the only advantage of having a good cast). The director seems lazy to explain the story and just throw the information to the spectator. Although with good moments, the movie is all conducted to the most stupid session of screams, blood and obvious moments, with the most pathetic ending.

The Resident surprised me... first because stars Hillary Swank, who also is the producer and who also won 2 Academy Awards, and second because it's a Hammer production, which historically produced all of the most known B movies in history.

For me it's just a reworking of Sleeping With The Stranger (1991), the difference here is that the main character doesn't know it. This could be a lot entertaining if Hillary Swank wasn't attached to it, and could be a lot interesting and nostalgic if the movie wasn't too serious.

I can't blame the plot, which is very interesting though the great collection of clichés and some bad character's development destroy the main subject and entire movie.

It has a good beginning and is never hidden from the audience the mad obsession of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character. He portrays it perfectly when he's frustrated or punishing himself when rejected. There's a moment when he asks Hillary Swank's character what is happening between them because she was who kissed him first, and then she says: "THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE DO!". That scene is very interesting because we can feel his pain and the movie was exploring it great till that moment. Then everything become a completely mess and the movie transforms into another regular thriller with that ordinary 'cat & mouse' thing and Jeffrey's character, which was just a regular guy suffering from obsession, becomes an ordinary serial killer.

The movie ends as it should exactly in the moment that you were expecting since the very first minute, or the very first trailer if you have watched.

Is just an empty movie with some rare good moments and a lot of other lazy I've-seen-that-before moments, a waste in Hillary's career.

I found this movie on Netflix and saw that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was in it, and that was more than enough of a sales pitch to make me sit down and watch "The Resident".

I have to admit that Jeffrey Dean Morgan was amazing in this movie and he really carried the movie quite nicely. Hillary Swank is certainly not among my most favorite of actresses, and she wasn't outstanding in this movie. Too bad that Christopher Lee wasn't given a bigger role in the movie, because he always brings something unique to the movies he was in.

The Max character was just genuinely disturbed and creepy, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan was really nicely cast for this role.

The storyline in "The Resident" was quite good and captivating, which made for some adequate entertainment.

While "The Resident" is indeed and entertaining movie, then it is hardly the type of movie that has enough contents in its storyline and plot to support more than a single viewing.

Could've been much better, decent premise but just poor execution.

The Resident (2011)

** (out of 4)

Really disappointing film from Hammer about an ER doctor (Hilary Swank) who moves into a lavished apartment in Brooklyn and soon discovers that her kind-hearted landlord (Jeffrey Dean MOrgan) is actually obsessed with her. THE RESIDENT has some nice performances, good direction and a few clever moments but in the end it's really a misfire as there's no energy in anything we're seeing and what we are seeing is something that has already been done to death and this film adds nothing new to the mix. What we've basically got here is a "psycho from hell" movie but it never works because there's never any tension going on. The entire film seems to run twice as long as it actually does and I think the main reason for this is that everything we're watching we've seen in much better movies. The only real difference is that the psycho has pretty much build the apartment so that there are many different areas where he can sneak into it or simply spy on his victim. This gives us some pretty silly moments including one where the landlord likes to hide under the bed until the victim falls asleep and then he sucks on her fingers! We also get a scene where he uses her toothbrush. Yeah, that's scary. Both Swank and Morgan do a very good job in their roles and there's no question that they have some nice chemistry during the early portion of the film. It's just the screenplay really gives neither one any place to go and the majority of the time we just see Swank taking her clothes off (including some nude scenes) and Morgan watching her. Christopher Lee has a supporting part here and it was nice to see him. THE RESIDENT has a clever idea here and there but sadly the majority of what we're watching is just downright boring and just leads to one predictable scene after another.