Meeting Evil

A pretty decent film with good production values and very good acting all around. Probably it's hard to avoid, but the story does suffer from the Hollywood effect - making every movie look like any another movie, since they all need to be sold somehow. In it's favor, 'Meeting Evil' starts out fairly loyal to its source material, and stays on track most of the way, despite some unneeded upping of the conventional stakes, and a couple extra back story complications. These don't really hurt the film, and it's a fairly exciting experience, up until the contemporary Hollywood twistiness at the end, which, though interesting, blunts the point of the Berger novel (at least as regards the main character). It tries to make its own point about evil in everyday life, and might have succeeded were it not for the logical problem it introduces with the Richie character's motivation. Though it's not in the book, I do think the concluding scene is actually pretty good; or it would be, if the viewer can get past the twist that doesn't really fit.

Update: Forgot I wrote this. Anyway, more time has passed, and a recent viewing has put more distance between any expectations I had from the book. I could see it more as its own experience, and that raises my estimation of the film. Give it a go sometime.

A 2012 movie, starring Samuel L. Jackson, that no one has heard of? It should tell you something about the quality of this movie already. It should remain unknown to most people, since this simply isn't being a very good movie at all.

It truly amazed me how incredibly poorly this movie got done. It doesn't have any good storytelling in it and the movie is deprived of any good tension or emotions. This is mostly because everything in this movie comes across as stupid and nothing ever works out as anything convincing.

It's also all really because the movie hardly explains anything. Stuff doesn't make sense and just happens. It doesn't make any sense for the Samuel L. Jackson character to go through so much trouble just to mess with one guy's life. He basically is being like a stalker from hell, without any good motivation or character development. It's something that could work. I mean, just look at "The Hitcher". We don't know where this guy comes from and why he's killing people but it works out. For Samuel L. Jackson's character it really doesn't though. His character seems to be too rational, as opposed to just simply being psychotic and he also seems to get absolutely nothing out of killing and messing with people. No pleasure, nor thrills and the same can be said for those who watch this movie; you'll get very little pleasure and thrills out of it.

Yes, I know, it does try to explain a little toward its ending but the ending has a whole bunch of stupid and unlikely developments, that causes nothing to really work out, at least not in an effective and convincing enough way.

Seriously, all of the developments that transpire in this movie make you go; yeah right! Or; why don't the characters just simple do this or that? It's annoying, next to being stupid as well. It doesn't feel like a clever or well thought out movie at all and what makes things worse is that none of it is getting handled good enough in this movie either. No, Chris Fisher clearly isn't being a very good director, as this movie at times painfully demonstrates.

Besides the Samuel L. Jackson character, all of the other characters are lacking as well in this. Luke Wilson isn't a very good or charismatic and likable enough main 'hero'. I know, he was supposed to be an average guy but there is a big difference between being average or boring. Besides, the movie gives you no real good reason to root for him or his family, which again, is also due to the fact that they make some stupid and terribly unconvincing decisions throughout the movie.

Something that also worked out as something highly annoying for me was the musical score by Ryan Beveridge. There is almost nothing more annoying and distracting than a musical score that totally doesn't suit the movie and what is happening on the screen!

One of the worst thrillers I have seen in a while.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

There were times during Chris Fisher's Meeting Evil when I wasn't quite sure what kind of movie I was watching. The music, especially near the beginning, seems to indicate that its horror. The cinematography lends itself to art house aspirations, and the plot is a cross between thriller and noir. It became clear after not too long that the reason I could not figure out what I was watching is because the filmmakers didn't know either. And that doesn't help the movie one bit.

Luke Wilson stars as John Felton, a family man who has had the world fall in on him. He's lost his job, he's overdue on all his bills and he comes home to find a foreclosure notice on his front door.

His recent troubles are causing issues at home, with his wife Joanie (Leslie Bibb) expressing obvious frustration at their current financial situation. Everything changes when Richie (Samuel L. Jackson) knocks on John's door, asking for help with his stalled car.

One event leads to another and before John knows it, he's being led by Richie across his county, leaving murdered bodies in his wake.

It's a pretty straight forward setup for a crime thriller, but the film has so many problems that after a while, everything stops being tense and comes across as satirical. Having not read the original novel by Thomas Berger, I cannot comment whether these issues were present in the source material or whether they were introduced in the film. In either case, they don't serve it well.

Jackson seems to know the ridiculousness of the material because his portrayal of Richie is so amazingly campy that it is hard to fault him for it. It's more self-aware than it is bad.

Wilson on the other hand, is as vibrant as dead fish, bringing no sense of desperation to a man that should be desperate about everything that's going on around him.

The script (penned by Fisher himself), is awful, giving both leads, as well as the supporting cast almost nothing worthwhile to say, making the film's message – yes, it has one – totally nonsensical.

Add to that some dangling plot points that are never explained, a ridiculous twist at the end and recurring characters that add nothing to the plot (seriously, was there a time in this movie when that little girl wasn't outside walking her dog?), and what you have is a film that leaves the viewer throwing their hands in the air in frustration.

As a film Meeting Evil is pretty terrible, but as fodder for a Saturday Night movie watching party it might have merit – especially if one decides to use it as the basis for a drinking game.

Daniel FilmPulse.net

Psycho thriller with classic Sam Jackson at his campy best. All the acting was top notch, but the movie was hard to figure out. I loved that you never really knew where it was going. Neither did the protagonist.

And I really liked the main characters. They were believable and respectable.

The goal of this film wasn't to spell everything out for the viewer, but to take you for a ride. Not knowing what was going on the whole time was engrossing for me. That's what the protagonist was going through. So I identified with him and his decisions throughout.

Really, I don't know why there are so few good reviews on this film. Perhaps one thing to keep in mind is people lie and manipulate. Especially evil psycho people. They also tend to target someone, usually someone they're jealous of, to mess with. If that's never happened to you before, this film is going to mess with your mind!

I was looking for more symbolism in the story and visuals. But the messages were all in the characters' actions, including a great allegorical story in addition to the main story. Plus a nice philosophy at the end. Had a bad day, but the sun will rise again tomorrow.

Enjoyable re-watch. I love that it didn't stress me out with torture or suspense, but has multiple layers of depth. The movie is way better than I'm making it sound. Just roll with it!

IMDb have provided a blurb so I'll just give you my opinion. I only review movies if no one else has done one yet.

Meeting Evil could be very vaguely described as "Changing Lanes with more carnage". I'm not sure why this film went straight-to-DVD. It's probably because the plot is a tad all over the place. Sometimes it's hard to understand Luke's actions and Sam's intentions. Some viewers may find this frustrating while others will simply consider it to be part of the fun. On the plus side, it's quite fast paced. You're barely 5 minutes into it before Sam pounds on Luke's front door and the thrills begin. Sam Jackson is quite clearly having a field day as the full-blown psycho who despises people with a lack of common courtesy. Luke plays the hero/victim and his character isn't exactly likable, but hopefully you'll be able to relate to him in some small way. He claims to be a nice guy and he's obviously accustomed to people treating him like a doormat. He's cheating on his wife... but then again she's cheating on him too. By the end of the film I still wasn't sure which one of them cheated first. They might've explained it when I tuned out for several seconds. I'd never heard of Leslie Bibb who portrays the no-nonsense wife and she gave a good performance so she's officially on my radar now.

I originally intended on giving this film 6 stars but when I think about it, I found myself empathising with Luke's character and hoping that either Luke or Leslie would lay their vengeance upon Sam at the climax. On that level it worked for me but if anything, that's just a testament to Sam's performance. If you're in the mood for a thriller and you can't find anything that tickles your fancy, you might as well let Sam Jackson take you for a ride. Let's face it, he RARELY steers us in the wrong direction. It also helps if you consider yourself to be a fan of Luke Wilson. If you hate him, you'll probably find this film to be average at best. I very much doubt it will change your opinion of him as an actor or a human being. Countless actor's could've played that role... but they didn't... he did... and he did a good job.