Shadow of Fear (2004)

Overcomplicated screenplay trying to show off with too many TV twists... so as to cover up the poor quality of character writing. Spader is lost and tries to find confort by looking into his box of tricks but they don't fit since the story is going south. The only one playing right is Aidan Quinn. This isn't really a movie but a second hand TV serial quality something.

I give this a 3 out of ten, and that's only because cuties Quinn, Spader, and Coyote (in that order) were in it. Aidan Quinn gave the best performance, living up to his sensual, commanding presence as a cunning detective. He is as handsome as handsome gets and was quite frankly the only reason I kept watching the movie until it ended (the end being reminiscent of a "Ya seen one, ya seen 'em all: SuperHero Saves the Day" moment). I suspect he had no clue the final cut of the movie would render such a poor product, much less that it threatened to weaken his very reputation as a reputable actor! Spader gave likely the worst performance I've ever seen him yield--with virtually no emotion and even less vocabulary employed throughout. His performance was faarrr from "commanding" or even engaging and was flatly unconvincing. The movie was played out like everyone was rehearsing the script for the first time in an audition and someone just happened to have a videocam nearby and decided to kill some time. To see a bunch of grown men sitting around sobbing in their drinks like the poor, helpless victims of a single Mastermind Grim Reaper (more like MustardMind) was beyond ridiculous and I came out thinking of Quinn, Spader, and Coyote: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? (Or were they all just really hard up for some cash that month?) The only thing missing was Spader's tights, cape, and evil mask as some cartoonish villain and hearing everyone that passed him cry, "Heil Ashbury!" The movie is a blight to them all. Such great actors and so poor a finished product . . . I'd hate to have something like this on my resume . . . especially so late in my established career.

I liked this movie. I even watched it a second time so that I could catch the little things I missed the first time around. I suppose it was a lame plot with lame actors (average B movie), but I liked it. James Spader plays his usual sleaze-ball rich guy and as usual, he does so quite well. I thought he was pretty tricky in the way he trapped society's best. I have to admit I was a bit confused the first time through as to the exact purpose of the Tuesday meetings--things became clearer as the movie progressed. Overall I thought the "secret Tuesday society" was a pretty cool (albeit sick) idea. The ending was very cool and worth the wait. I love murder mysteries and this was a good smooth-flowing storyline.

a movie about a secret society of men who are made to pay too high a price to redeem themselves of their sins. The movie focuses around main actor Harrisson French who is made to believe that he ran over his brother -in -law by the leader of this secret society, William Ashbury and the only way he is to keep from getting busted by the cops is to provide favours for Ashbury. Surprise, surprise French becomes the hero of this really boring story. A very average performance coupled with an even poorer plot make this one something that will probably and most rightly so, never be seen by the lucky majority. My rating: 4.5