Rivales

I know everyone is saying this movie sucks and giving it horrible reviews advising people not to go see it, but I for one thought it was pretty enjoyable. Unforgettable stars Katharine Heigl, Rosario Dawson, Geoff Stults, and Cheryl Ladd. It is a pretty tense movie, sort of like a mothers boys type movie. I'll first say that Katherine Heigl was a great villain in the film, I think she was the perfect casting choice for the role of the possessive ex-wife Tessa. There are some people saying that she did a bad job in the movie, but those people are dead wrong, i think she needs to play villains more often going forward. Sure she's always great in a romantic comedy, which is her typical niche, but I think she may have found a new kind of role for herself with this movie. Rosario Dawson is good in the movie too, very sweet and kind character who is being terrorized by the crazy former wife and mother of her new stepdaughter. I thought Geoff was pretty good here too, I like him in grace and Frankie and I liked him here too. Dawson and Stults have really good romantic chemistry. The thriller aspect did have its predictability sometimes but overall it kept me interested and there wasn't a single moment where I was bored or wanted to leave. It's not a fantastic movie and it won't win any big awards, but I enjoyed it as an entertaining thriller and I think you will too. 7/10.

Spare yourself from wasting an hour and forty minutes on this miserable poorly acted snorefest. This is a story that we've seen many times before. You know the one about the couple in love who are ready to take the next step in their relationship when suddenly the psychotic ex comes to make things troublesome for them? We've been there before. It isn't new ground, nor is it a unique story anymore. This story takes no effort to make it's self unique from those other films that focused on this very same plot. Had it been different than the others in some way, it would have been better. Furthermore, Unforgettable mostly felt like an evening Lifetime movie and most of the scenes were dreadfully boring and uneventful. It doesn't even begin to entertain until the last 20 minutes. The saving grace is that it stars not one but two beautiful leading ladies: Rosario Dawson (Marvel/Netflix's DareDevil and Luke Cage, Sin City), who was actually the reason I decided to watch this film in the first place, and Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up, Life as We Know It). The tension between Dawson and Heigl at times felt forced and awkward but both did a great job overall. Heigl in her role as the psychotic Barbie- type really made us believe that she was truly unhinged. The way she menacingly glares at Dawson in her scenes. The way you could actually see when her blood begins to boil...she played the role well. The problem is that even though Heigl and Dawson led the film, they were bound by the limitations of bad writing, bad directing, and bad production and no amount of talent from either Heigl nor Dawson could save this film from it's own failures.

A curious note first of all: this is the first movie directed by Denise Di Novi. She's been a producer for years - I thought I had seen her name somewhere before, and then it clicked when Tim Burton came to mind (she's produced many of his best films) - but now, only now, does she step behind the camera. Why for this? Did the original director walk away or the producers couldn't find someone? It's not strange to see that this is a directorial debut, but it is odd to see that this is made by an industry professional, nay a veteran, and that it's so... bland. Unforgettable rests in an uncomfortable area: not fun enough to be a trashy/campy movie like a No Good Deed or Obsessed (perhaps Idris Elba is the x-factor?), or even like a made-for-TV Lifetime stalker thriller like Stalked by my Doctor (imagine Eric Roberts in the Katherine Heigl role!), and it's not unique or interesting enough to be good.

Actually, that's not wholly fair: Rosario Dawson, as the new lover (and soon to be fiancé) of the ex-husband of the jilted Heigl character, is quite good. It's hard for her to be anything else, and she takes a movie as middling as this as seriously as she would Sin City or Danny Boyle's Trance or whatever the case. She's here to work, while an actress like Heigl is here to be in her one quiet-but- crazy-B-word modus operondi, and Cheryl Ladd (yep, ex Charlies Angels Cheryl Ladd) is more apt for a Lifetime movie, albeit her profile is just right for this character of Heigl's mother.

We've seen this all before, even if we think the divorced angle makes it a little different (only barely, maybe), and as it involves people of mega privilege it feels distanced from a lot of our lives so the emotional immediacy will only be there for those who really stretch to feel it. It's a telegraphed story put upon a movie that somehow has the even stranger luck, speaking of people behind the camera, of being shot by Caleb Deschanel(!) Perhaps if you have less than zero things to do (or are a master at procrastination) and this pops up on a Sunday afternoon on TV it's passable. But in a theater? Well, let's just say you'll be 80% of the time dulled, maybe 19% of the time entertained in that trashy-campy way (which is not a great ratio)... and then the last 1% is a complete WTF last scene ending that made me curse the screen I was gazing.

Ignore the bad reviews, they must have been watching something else.

This is Fatal Attraction x 10. We have all seen this before. Begrudging and resentful ex/wife etc. cannot accept that her man has moved on. Playing the innocent victim while framing the new woman who has come in to his ex husband's life.

While this film is clearly a 6/10 at the most, I rated it a 7 due to the negativity revolving around it.

The movie is by no means a masterpiece or anything new that we have not seen before, yet it is a decent drama which kept me entertained.

Dawson and Heigl work well in their respective roles. Decent acting paired with average direction and obvious plot holes, Unforgettable should be watched at home as it is clearly note worth the ticket price at the cinema. Personally, I enjoyed it.