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Movies with twist endings are a dime a dozen these days, but once

in awhile, a movie comes along that completely pulls the rug from

under your feet and leaves you affected for hours after you've seen

it. The Usual Suspects was a movie that had a particularly

effective twist ending. So was last year's Memento. Horror movies

have long been known for creating twists when revealing the

identity of a killer, but rarely, has there been a horror movie that

has taken such an intellectual route to unveiling a story and then

trumping it with such an unexpected twist ending.

As Frailty opens, the FBI is plagued by a series of serial killings

and disappearances by a criminal calling himself "God's Hands".

They've reached an impasse in the case until a Fenton Meeks

(played by Matthew McConaughey) comes to their door and

reveals that his brother may be the killer. He then proceeds to

relay an incredible story about how their father dragged the boys

into a mission to destroy demons, conveniently disguised as local

townsfolk.

Told in flashback, the story is set in a typical small town in the

South, where Meeks' father, played by Bill Paxton, is a widower

raising his two sons on his own. In the middle of the night, he tells

his sons that God has come to him in the form of an angel to

enroll him as a soldier in God's army in a war against demons

living on earth. These demons look just like humans, except that

Meeks' father can see them by putting his hands on them. His

mission is to destroy them. Fenton is a bit suspicious and

skeptical, but his trusting younger brother, Adam, is enthralled and

ready to do whatever his father needs him to do. Fenton's

suspicions quickly turn to fear, as he witnesses his father destroy

his first demon with an axe and then bury the body in the rose

garden behind their house. His father's convictions in what he is

doing are so strong that he is able to sound convincing and sane,

except that Fenton realizes he must stop his father. The conflict

between the two leads to Fenton's lack of faith and a refusal to

believe in God, as his father continuously pushes him to

participate in the mission.

Directed by Paxton, Frailty is a true horror movie of the highest

magnitude, and it's one of those intelligent character-driven

thrillers that are far too rare. The tone and setting of the movie is

like something that Stephen King might have written, while the

movie itself is reminiscent of two of his better movie adaptations,

the coming-of-age drama Stand by Me and Pet Sematary. Some

aspects of Frailty also remind one of M. Night Shamalayan's

dreadful, Unbreakable. Although this tends to be equally as slow,

Paxton takes a similar premise and does it in a way that manages

to keep the viewer riveted to the screen. The most disturbing

aspect of the movie is watching Paxton as the loving father who

gets his children involved in his brutal crimes, and the situation is

even more tense when one realizes how witnessing such carnage

could affect these young minds. Setting the story in such a simple

locale as this Everytown, USA, makes the nature of the killings

even more harrowing. After spending the entire movie thinking you

know what will happen, the back-to-back plot twists at the end are

every bit as satisfying as those in The Usual Suspects and

Memento.

Considering that this is Paxton's first time as director, the excellent

performances by the entire cast are even more impressive,

particularly Matthew O'Leary, who plays the young Fenton Meeks.

O'Leary's performance makes him one of those child actors that

should be kept an eye upon. Jeremy Sumpter plays his optimistic

brother, Adam, in a way that brings a nice counterpoint to the

brothers' relationship with their father. Without question, Paxton is

every bit as good in this as he was in A Simple Plan, playing the

father with a creepy smile of confidence and an air of politeness

that makes his cause seem just. By comparison, Matthew

McConaughey's role is fairly minor, as he only appears in the

framing sequences and acts as narrator for the flashback scenes.

When he is in front of the camera, he does a nice job looking and

acting as haggard as one who might after experiencing some of

the things he did as a teenager.

The script by first-time screenwriter, Brian Hanley, is sharp and the

storytelling is coherent and easy to follow, which can be rare in this

sort of movie. Some of the twist movies that Frailty draws

comparisons to have left the viewer thinking, "huh?", due to the

overly complex storytelling. Even though Frailty sometimes uses a

flashback within the main flashback, it still manages to keep

things comparatively simple and cohesive.

The movie doesn't actually show much of the inherent violence or

gore, making it even more disturbing as the mind fills in the

blanks with the graphic detail, and the sound effects add further to

the effect. The background music works well to help build the

tension, and the lighting is used to create a mood more effectively

than any other recent movie I've seen. From the light pouring

through the slats in a shed to the light emblazoning the police car

grill onto McConaughey's face, the lighting plays the largest part in

making this movie visually stunning, much like Alan Parker's Angel

Heart.

Frailty is easily one of the best horror movies I've seen in a long

time, almost like that Stephen King movie that no one has yet been

able to make. Paxton should be commended on such a fine

directorial debut and for bringing together such a fine group of

actors.

Have you ever hit the lowest point of your life and just as you think you're about to get out of it, someone does something to drive you further down the spiral? Did anyone ever do anything to you that was so hurtful or that got you so mad that you wanted to do whatever you could to get back at them?

These are the questions that go through the minds of two disparate New Yorkers, who turn a minor car accident on the West Side Highway into a bitter,day-long feud. Samuel L. Jackson plays Doyle Gibson, an insurance salesman who has recently been separated from his wife and family due to his alcoholism. Ben Affleck plays Gavin Banek, a scheister lawyer wanna-be, who has been entrusted by his law firm to deliver important documents to court to prevent a lawsuit against the firm. Both men are in a hurry to get to their respective court appearances, when they get into the car accident, but when Banek rushes off, he leaves behind the document that would save his case and his firm. When Gibson is made late for his own court appearance to fight for the custody of his kids, it drives him into an act of desperation and anger, as he uses the important file to try to get back at the uncaring lawyer who has ruined his life. In return, Banek goes to a slimy hacker to tamper with Gibson's credit rating, putting the home loan he needs to save his family in jeopardy.

Changing Lanes examines the lives of the two guys, who are trying to desperately to hold their lives together, and just as they are about to make ends meet, they run into each other-quite literally-making matters worse. The movie doesn't have as much to do with the two men fighting against each other, as the two men trying to find a way out of their situations and change their lives. Neither guy is particularly bad, but they both feel they must do whatever they can to save face and save their way of living.

If you've seen the commercials or the trailer, you've probably seen the best parts of the movie, and much of the rest involves needless sub-plots and exposition that acts as pure filler. The trailers are a bit deceiving as they seem to promise an action-packed thriller, but that's just not this movie. The basic formula is that we see a bit of expository dialogue, then one of the guys acts against the other, there's a bit more exposition, he feels bad, but before restitution can be made, the other guy retaliates. There never is the sort of over-the-top one-upmanship that made the recent Panic Room such a great movie. It also quickly turns into a reenactment of The Firm, as Banek tries to find out the truth behind his firm's unscrupulous practices when it comes to the estate of a dead philanthropist.

As far as actors go, I'm a fan of Jackson's, but not so much of Ben Affleck; as characters, both of them have a hard time winning over the audience. Just as you begin to despise Affleck's character, he tries to make amends and make up for some of his tactics. By comparison, Jackson's behavior tends to be erratic and irrational, suddenly flying into rages as you begin to empathize with him. But other than that, Jackson and Affleck are both given an ideal opportunity to show off how good they are as actors, and in this film, they're both at the top of their game. Ben Affleck is surprisingly good, with the redemption of his character being apropos, considering his own recent personal problems. To his credit, he turns Banek into the more likable of the characters over the course of the movie. He consciously tries to resolve the situations as they escalate while Gibson seems rather unrepentant and thus, less sympathetic. What's interesting is that the two men keep passing each other, yet their direct face-to-face interaction in the movie is fairly minimal. It's too bad, since these few moments are some of the film's best.

The rest of the cast, which includes Amanda Peet as Banek's wife (and daughter of the big boss) and William Hurt as Gibson's AA sponsor, are unnecessary and easily discarded characters. They could have just as easily been unknowns, hired from a SAG casting call. The only exception is actor/director, Sydney Pollack, who plays off Affleck beautifully, as his boss/father-in-law. Pollack has always been a class act, and he plays the slimeball trying to justify his own crimes as well as he did in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

The script, a first screenwriting effort by Chap Taylor, is great, and credit can be given to director Roger (Notting Hill) Michell for getting such stellar performances out of the two actors, but both of them should also be blamed for the poor pacing. The movie is very slow and dry, and there is just way too much exposition and drama. Taylor should have tried to insert a few lighter moments to break up the rather dour mood of the movie. As far as the filmmaking, the entire movie looks grainy and poorly lit with fairly bad cinematography. Michell uses way too many close-ups, and often, the camera seems as if it was poorly positioned. There is a clear-cut moral and resolution to the story as both men try to seek out redemption, but in general, the ending is also a bit of an anti-climax.

Overall, the premise for Changing Lanes is good, making for an interesting character study, but it gets bogged down in trying to develop the characters far beyond what is needed. More often than not, the movie tends to drag, and it fails to deliver on the trailer's promise of being an exciting thriller. On the other hand, it does succeed as an insightful drama, and if it were a stage play, I would be raving about the terrific script and performances. But to sit in a movie theatre trying to watch these two characters trying to make sense of their lives is just not what I consider entertainment, and if this were a television drama, I probably would have changed the channel.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The latest movie from the warped mind of Being John Malkovich writer Charlie Kaufman is a romantic comedy, exploring the relationships between four individuals brought together by a series of tentative bonds.

The first character, introduced in a series of flashbacks, is Lila (Patricia Arquette), a hirsute girl who becomes an outcast from society due to her fur-covered body. She decides to live in the forest and become a nature writer, but eventually, she gets horny, so her electrolysist (played by Rosie Perez) sets her up with Dr. Nathan Bronfman, an anal and neurotic psychologist, played by Tim Robbins. Bronfman has his own set of issues after being raised by strict disciplinarian parents, and it's not surprising that he's a 35-year-old virgin, considering that his main area of study is trying to teach lab mice table manners. The two quickly fall in love and on a nature trip, they come across a man who has been raised in the wilds, not by a monkey, but by his human father who thinks that he is a monkey. This monkey man, played by Rhys Ifans, brings out Lila's more animalistic urges, but Nathan thinks that this is the key for taking his research to the next step. The newly dubbed "Puff" allows himself to be conditioned by Nathan, trying to please his newfound "father", by learning and acting more human.

Relative newcomer, Miranda Otto, plays Gabrielle, Nathan's manipulative "French" lab assistant, playing with the doctor's feelings to get whatever she wants from him. When Nathan finds out Lila's hairy secret, it horrifies him, driving him into Gabrielle's arms and creating a bizarre love rectangle between the four.

Kaufman once again gets a chance to see how far he can go with a number of strange premises and try to tie them together into a cohesive story. This time around, he is working with another video director making his first feature length film in Michel Gandry.

Frankly, Human Nature only has one or two jokes-neither as original as a portal into the head of John Malkovich-but they're funny enough to be stretched out and provide humorous fodder for the entire movie. It does take a little while to warm up to these characters and the situation though. Early in the movie, when a naked and hairy Lila starts parading through the forest singing a song that could have come right out of Disney's "Song of the South", you expect a very long and painful movie. But it gets better, and clearly, Rhys Ifans steals the movie, much like he did as Hugh Grant's roommate in Notting Hill. Some of the funnier scenes involve Puff's "training" to be more human, and the set-up just gets more and more outlandish. At one point, he is taught how to behave at the opera with a full opera box set constructed inside his cage. Imagine Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle singing "Puttin' on the Ritz" in Young Frankenstein to get some idea how funny this situation becomes as it progresses. Ifans alternates between being highly cultured and refined and being a horny, sex-crazed animal. This leads to all sorts of insane situations, where he tries but fails to control his urges, at one point humping a waitress in a classy restaurant. Eventually, he goes on a lecture tour, and the animalistic lovemaking of Nathan and Gabrielle in the next room, drives Puff to a lecherous life seeking out prostitutes. This allows Ifans to show off a darker side to the character, and he beautifully captures the pain suffered by a man-animal that can't decide which he would rather be. The characters are similar archetypes to those found in Being John Malkovich, as Tim Robbins plays John Cusack's hapless schmuck, Otto plays the Catherine Keener bitchy other woman role, and Arquette is the frumpy, spurned woman. Most of the second half of the movie shows how the four characters play a series of human mind games, as they try to feed their animal urges.

Tim Robbins plays his character a bit subtler then some of his past roles, but it works for the character. One of the other amusing schticks involves Nathan debunking his own shrink's theories on his problems--surely his chosen field of study couldn't have anything to do with his strict upbringing. His reaction to finding out that his parents have adopted a polite and well-mannered six-year-old is priceless.

It's fairly obvious that Otto is one of Australia's latest Nicole Kidman clones, as she has a similar mix of beauty and range of demeanor, being sweet one moment and sassy the next. While Gabrielle is a fairly minor role compared to the others, her next appearance will be in the second chapter of The Lord of the Rings.

Patricia Arquette is the weakest link in this equation. (Or is she the missing link?) She spends much of the movie naked or semi-clothed, but doing everything possible to be as unattractive and as unsexy as possible. If she isn't covered in hair from literally from head to toe, she is shaving her body hair, or she is bald, wearing a bad wig and acting psychotic. The concept of a hair-covered woman is a creep enough concept without Arquette's over-the-top performance.

The movie isn't as stylish as some of director Michel Gandry's videos, although the forest scenes hark back to one of his earliest works, which irony of ironies, was on Bjork's first video for the song, "Human Behavior".

Overall, Human Nature is a bizarre little movie that gets funnier as it goes along. The laughs come slow at first, but once Rhys Ifans takes center stage, the laughs are regular and hearty. It is a terrific exploration of what it is to be human and what it is to be an animal, and how hard it sometimes is to make the two ends meet. That said, if you're expecting this to be exactly like Being John Malkovich, then you may be disappointed, as this is an animal of another species.

Rating: 7 out of 10