Double Trahison

"No Good Deed" isn't a bad home invasion thriller, but it's completely unremarkable, and merely satisfied with fitting a standard studio woman-in-peril mould. It's not difficult to tell where the events are all leading right from the beginning.

To its credit, the performances from Idris Elba, Taraji P. Henson and Leslie Bibb are decent, and the film manages one strong suspense sequence early on (Elba's first encounter with his ex-girlfriend after he leaves prison). There's also one mildly surprising twist in the final third, but its not enough to save a tepid, predictable middle section.

"Deed" is a film is enjoyed best as mindless entertainment on a rainy, stormy night (like the one in the film), with the proviso that you expect a film that trots along an utterly formulaic, seen-it-before path.

While this wasn't anything special, it definitely wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. The leads do an excellent job in their respective roles, which is coupled nicely with solid writing. The first act is nothing to write home about, and the movie felt like it was dragging towards the end, it was still relatively entertaining. All in all, a pretty standard cat/and-mouse tale, decent to throw on for movie night.

Sure, I might have seen films with comparable story lines, we all probably have, but it still has it's own originality and a great performance absolutely nailed by Idris Elba.

All that Hollywood does is steal and rip off. Even (especially) our favourite wonder child Taranatino does it all the time. It's the way this is done that can make a film stand out. This, combined with plenty of atmosphere and solid performances all round make an entertaining and sometimes pretty tense watch.

I liked it, but must admit I'm a big fan of Elba's work so I am slightly biased. Just for his performance alone this is well worth a watch 7/10

Idris Elba was the man, as a psychotic woman hating murderer who escapes jail and through a series of events, cross paths with Terri, played by Taraji P. Henson, who's was in a troubled marriage and vulnerable to the killer's charms.

It Reminded me of the 1986 movie, Extremities with Farrah Fawcett as the female victim being taken hostage by a criminal looking to steal her "goodies"

I thought No good deed was a lot more cleaver than most movies of this kind. In certain places, it has to fall into line of genre's plot (woman alone in the house without her man, then a scary bad boy comes to the door and charms his way into the lonely women's house), but the movie surprised me by putting a little ore substance into the female victim, by making her life more interesting than usual, and it helps having an Oscar nominee like Ms. Hensen play the role. A fact that was not used to advertise the movie as much as it should have. Definitely a better played out Victim than I've seen before.

A decent plot and a great thriller. I recommend giving it a shot.

The story portrayed in this film is pretty much spelled out in the trailer. Crazy escaped convict terrorizes a woman and her kids. That's pretty much it, but there is a nasty little twist in the story that I did not see coming (although I did have a feeling). You know…. When you ask yourself "surely it isn't this" and come to find out …. Oh yes, it is. I have to give Colin (Indris Elba) a lot of credit for playing it super cool to make his way into the house. Although you knew he was the "bad" guy who is eventually going to snap, you kind of find yourself liking him for a little while (with his fine self). Terri (Taraji P. Henson) was a relatively smart women who made some serious errors at the beginning of the film, but had I not known in advance what was going to happen, I probably would not have thought that she did anything wrong. She was just trying to be nice and do the right thing. Meg (Leslie Bibb) is Terri's best friend and she drove home the point that no one knows you better than your best friend. At first I thought that she was going to be a little ditzy, but she proved me wrong. Jeffrey (Henry Simmons) is Terri's husband who does not seemed to be vested in the relationship. This is very apparent right from the beginning. I went to the 2nd showing on the day the film was released and I have to say that the theater was pretty well populated. The one thing that I have to say about seeing a film with a diverse crowd is that folks talk (out loud) to the people on the screen (myself included). Toward the end of the film I heard myself saying "how does she think that's going to work" and then immediately after that I said "why does he think that worked"…... you'll see what I mean when you go to see it. Other than that, there are three reasons why I liked this film…., the great lead characters, the consistent flow of the film and finally the whole story was told in around 90 minutes. This is director Sam Miller's first attempt at a widely distributed feature film and I think that he did a pretty good job. I would recommend it to a friend.