Refuge

Watching some so-called well known actors in lesser known older movies lately (2020) has brought an important realization-movies are truly a team effort, no actor, writer, producer or lone director actually carries an entire movie. That said, this actually had unrealized potential. Some reviews are unnecessarily long & harsh, afterall, if you have the average 90 minutes to watch movies or series, not everything you see is going to be earth shattering or blow you away and you're probably not out writing the next epic yourself. Sometimes the cringe is worth sitting to see for mock entertainment it brings, scenery or if you're like me, fun fact googling while you watch the cringe unfold. Happy camping folks.

I hope that Linda Hamilton saved a LOT of her divorce settlement, because this is without question the worst -- not ONE of the worst -- but THE worst film I have ever seen. She never could act, but she looked hot. Now she looks like road kill and her "acting" has gotten even worse! Reading in her biography that she was bi-polar helps a little to forgive her train wreck performance, but not much. The coke addiction she supposedly suffered from at one point in her life helps explain the lines in her once beautiful face. But, not much. She actually thought she was making a "black comedy" according to her interviews. Now, THAT'S FUNNY! It was simply sad that she took the opportunity and all the money she got along the way and this is what she ended up doing. How this production company ever got this film shot and more surprisingly released amazes me. It is not even amateurish. It just stinks.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I only watched it (on Netflix streaming) because I love Chris McDonald & could watch him polish his shoes and be entertained. Also, I was hoping to see a Linda Hamilton "comeback". I know she's had sort of a hard time, of late. And the description of it on Netflix made it sound like an interesting story.

Christopher, in his small but important role, was wonderful, as he always is. But he could not save this. He could not have saved it even if he had played a much larger part. Nothing and nobody could save this.

In the hands of a better director & writer, and with decent editing, I think it could have been a pretty good B-type film. The premise was interesting, but the direction & writing were so bad it ended up being a complete, barely watchable disaster.

I'm not sure exactly how much blame the editor should assume, but especially the first 45 min. were obviously "badly chopped up", with things happening with no background having been provided. I went back, over & over & over again, to try to understand several scenes, and found I hadn't missed anything, the details were just not there.

It didn't help that about halfway through, this attempts to become a dark comedy... for no apparent reason, other than that the writer/director decided to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the mix. Sadly, none of it worked, on any level.

All in all, this is one you should be sure to miss.