The Other Man (2008)

Successful shoe designer Lisa (Laura Linney) dies from cancer leaving her husband Peter (Liam Neeson) and her daughter Abigail (Romola Garai). Peter is a successful software entrepreneur. He discovers a voice message from a mystery man looking for his late wife and he cracks her password for a hidden cache of love pics. His security team uncovers her lover as Ralph Cortez. He goes to Milan and befriends Ralph without acknowledging his wife. Abigail begs him to stop his angry obsession.This is a great cast but the drama isn't there. There is no tension. There is a possibility of a dramatic turn but it goes in the opposite direction. There is a surprising reveal but it doesn't add to the drama. There is a message here as long as the audience is awake to see it. This is a short movie and yet it feels overly long.

"The Other Man", directed by Richard Eyre, is a fairly clunky movie. It goes on for quite awhile before pulling it's big turnaround which in fact turns the movie upside down and makes it fairly inert in terms of it's intended potency. I did like Antonio Banderas character who sparkled the most in the runtime. That particular setup was interesting, however Neeson's character was particularly pathetic and terrible to watch. (major spoiler) When we are finally told outright that Linney's character has passed, all of the sudden the whole movie feels like a cheap rip-off, and the motivation involved all of the sudden becomes nothing but obsession. It became a cheap trip. 5/10

As you know, pure drama in Hollywood nowadays is a disease.Whenever you have big stars, then it must be whether a comedy or an action. Otherwise it's an independent movie or a disease to be cured of. And for this drama, they found the remedy of "let's make it a Thriller !!!".The problem isn't in the misleading publicity. It's originally in the way part of this movie was written. See well how the script "hides" the wife weirdly since the start. In fact it's not smart playing with time, rather an idiot attempt to make a thriller ! Speaking about faults. Antonio Banderas' character is relatively one. How come that this janitor wears deluxe outfits, or knows these people he accompanies? How come he knew the wife in the first place? How he afforded the room and the journey that they had once? Why he wasn't made as gambler instead of chess player? (that would have explained the presence of money, and its vanishing as well). He calls himself a cosmopolitan citizen? He seemed more like a cosmopolitan beggar to me !Cut to Banderas himself. OK, to solve his enigma; it must be 1 out of 2 answers. He was / is / will be typecast as the Latino lover. Or, he can't do anything but that ! Banderas is a load of charisma, with not much of an actor. He's not bad of course, but he's a star; with a portion of the bad nature of the term. Still nothing glows by him, and pleads for him too, else his Zorro. I didn't see anything he pulled off, distinctly, here except looking dazzling as a Latino lover. And yet, I can't decide is it him? Or is it Hollywood that makes him away from getting roles like the one Neeson got in this movie for instance !On the other hand Liam Neeson ruled. True he evoked some of his last thrillers. Especially when he traveled to Europe to search for someone badly (in Taken "2008" he was searching for his daughter, and in Unknown "2011" he was searching for his wife and himself.). Though, and on the contrary of Banderas, he could establish a good character. Despite not that great writing, many moments witness that Neeson is higher actor. Just forget the many many times he said "How Dare YOU ?!!!", and recall the last 10 minutes of the movie. This man can sometimes make a character by being silent. The director feels the story, however seems astray with it at times. I mean how many shot he took for Neeson in front of his computer?! So with the silly ambiguity that was made, or made up, since the start; the movie did have a free share of confusion and bore that the story didn't deserve. The editing, the music, and the cinematography did compensate a little. And with Neeson's acting; it's watchable and particularly sensitive at last.Yes, one heart can fall in love with 2. Yes, sometimes the closest person doesn't know the closest to us. And yes, these facts can be learned – sorrowfully – very late. But NO, playing with time for nothing but turning nice drama into thriller couldn't get more awfully forced !To Hollywood : don't do that again, unless rightly.

In sexual terms, The Other Man is like having some pretty good foreplay but when you finally get around to doing the deed, the man's erection completely disappears. It slowly builds your anticipation, only to leave you with nothing but disappointment and frustration.Peter (Liam Neeson) is a successful businessman. Lisa (Laura Linney), his beautiful wife, is a shoe designer for high fashion. Abigail (Romola Garai), his daughter, is in love with a scruffy looking guy of whom Peter disapproves. After a cryptic post-fashion show conversation with Lisa, the film jumps ahead to Lisa being dead. That's when Peter discovers she was having an affair with a Spaniard named Ralph (Antonio Banderas). Peter compulsively seeks out Ralph (pronounced Rayf) and discovers her lover doesn't know that Lisa has passed away. Peter befriends Ralph and gets him to talk about Lisa and their love, seemingly as a prelude to killing him. But then Peter discovers the truth of who Ralph is and the reality of his feelings for Lisa and…well, I'm not really sure how to describe what happens after that. I mean, I could describe it, but you'll think I'm making it up because it's really that ridiculous.The first half of this film is quite effective. It treads a line between being an emotional drama and a thriller, always leaving you in of suspense about what's going happen. It subtly defines Peter as a man who's been unable to function since his wife's death until he finds a purpose in her adultery. You can see him wrap his arms around Lisa's betrayal as though it's brought her back to him and you can feel the tension build in him as he descends on the man who cuckolded him.After delightfully tantalizing the viewer, however, The Other Man goes irretrievably flaccid. All the emotion, all the investment, all the interest is killed deader than Napoleon's boner. That's because at the moment when the movie finally brings Peter and Ralph face-to-face, it goes into a string of intermittent flashbacks that continue through the entire 2nd half of the film. It's flashback after flashback of Lisa and Ralph, Lisa and Peter, Lisa and Abigail and it just destroys the story because all of the flashbacks displace the conflict you've been waiting the whole 1st half of the movie to see. You want to see Peter and Ralph interact. You want to see Peter play a cat-and-mouse game with the man he intends to kill. You want to see Ralph slowly start to wonder who this stranger is who keeps asking about Lisa. You want to see anger and jealously and hatred slowly seep into their conversations before exploding into the truth. And none of that really happens because the damned flashbacks get in the way. Peter and Ralph don't have one extended talk that doesn't get taken over by a flashback and it utterly derails all of the momentum built up in the story. To use sexual terms again, it's like watching an x-rated movie and in the middle of every sex scene, an image of your grandma pops up on screen.Now, Laura Linney does get naked, which remains a very good thing. She, Liam Neeson and Antonio Banderas also try hard, but Neeson and Banderas' characters are so frequently interrupted and displaced by all the damned flashbacks that they never get the chance to do more than sputter.The Other Man is half good, but the other half is so vexing that it ruins the whole thing. Unless you're somebody who only likes foreplay, don't bother with this motion picture.