The trailer for this film looked awful, but the film turns out to be quite engaging with some great performances.
Matthew (Josh Hartnett, BLACK HAWK DOWN) is an advertising photographer who has moved back home to Chicago after living in New York for two years. He’s now engaged to the beautiful Rebecca (Jessica Pare, LOST & DELIRIOUS) and is putting together a big business deal in China. But this is all thrown into a tailspin when he believes that he has seen Lisa (Diane Kruger, TROY), the love of his life who happened to break his heart.
The film plays out like a thriller as Matthew desperately searches for Lisa. He meets up with an old friend named Luke (Matthew Lillard, HACKERS) and even gets wrapped up with a mysterious brown-haired woman named Lisa (Rose Byrne, I CAPTURE THE CASTLE).
The story doesn’t play out chronologically, but often goes back in time and reveals key new information or replays a past event we’ve seen, but from a different point of view. A lot of reviews I read stressed the film’s convoluted plot, but I found the film’s structure exciting and thrilling. All the performances are wonderfully, especially Hartnett and Byrne. I even like Lillard in this film and I typically don’t like Lillard’s overacting style.
Many of the suspenseful moments toward the end are very contrived and the final scene is drawn out way too long (if I hear one more Coldplay song in a film I’m going to scream), but I liked the story enough to forgive its faults. Plus, I really liked the characters. All in all, this is a solid romantic suspense flick that is much better than it may seem to be.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
