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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

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.

Firstly I must say that the entire first half of the film kept reminding me of Collateral just with a switch of Tom Cruise to Samuel L. Jackson. Now as far as the film is concerned the plot was very familiar to me, I have seen it before but then again what haven't I saw before. For it's rather simple plot basis you come to expect some pretty good acting throughout, if you are looking for a complex thriller with twists & turns you may not like it, it's all about the acting. Now for the action and basic thrills of the film, they do enough to deliver the viewer a decent portrayal of good guy(Wilson) caught in the web with a very dangerous man named RICHIE (S.L.Jackson). As the film starts Wilson's character named JOHN is literally having THE WORST DAY of his life, his career has gone down the toilet & if that isn't bad enough he comes home to see a foreclosure note on the front door of his beautiful dream home plus he also has two young children to take care of. Then right about when I would be downing a handful of Valium he gets on knock on his door and there stands good old Samuel L. on his door step dressed in a nice suit & hat to boot and his evil presence is felt immediately, plus we know him from his lengthy film career as one real bad son of a @itch. His power and presence is tremendous for every minute.

Sadly, what happened to him earlier is just the starting point of an even worse day for this poor devastated man John. Then with a hard knock on john's door stands Jackson's character Richie arriving at his house complaining of car trouble, asking for a push to pop the clutch because he said it was running on fumes. One thing led to another & before you know it Wilson's character is barreling down the highway with Jackson at the wheel. The events that occur for the rest of the film let's say are pretty interesting to say the very least. Though he doesn't know it yet John is in for the ride of his life. I know that a lot of viewers have seen this plot before, it's been done countless times over the years, but with the right writing and convincing characters you could provide the needed electricity to entertain you for the run time

The acting from Jackson was what made this a good film, I couldn't think of another actor I would want to take his place It's a solid 7/10 partly because the production & cinematography were excellent, I enjoyed the camera work quite a bit. As for the conclusion of the film I was slightly surprised at the end though there was many subtle hints thrown at the audience all throughout the film. I am guessing that this isn't going to have a theater showing, due to the plot & not enough beef for Hollywood to embrace. So many films during 2011 that I thought were amazing went to VOD, I would like to see exactly what criteria they use, whether it's private screenings or what? Anyway again I call this a 7/10

Weird movie - and not in a good way. I really wanted to like this movie, which probably never helps, but the story and character behaviors are so far-fetched it kinda ruined it for me.

I had not read the book, so Sam's character made me wonder about his motives etc which kept me interested to the end.

The acting is solid but the editing seemed a bit off. It felt like a direct-to-DVD on production value for some reason.

Not the worst movie but I can't really recommend it with so many other better movies out there. Keep your expectations low if you're gonna see it.

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.