Meeting Evil

A pretty decent film with good production values and very good acting all around. Probably it's hard to avoid, but the story does suffer from the Hollywood effect - making every movie look like any another movie, since they all need to be sold somehow. In it's favor, 'Meeting Evil' starts out fairly loyal to its source material, and stays on track most of the way, despite some unneeded upping of the conventional stakes, and a couple extra back story complications. These don't really hurt the film, and it's a fairly exciting experience, up until the contemporary Hollywood twistiness at the end, which, though interesting, blunts the point of the Berger novel (at least as regards the main character). It tries to make its own point about evil in everyday life, and might have succeeded were it not for the logical problem it introduces with the Richie character's motivation. Though it's not in the book, I do think the concluding scene is actually pretty good; or it would be, if the viewer can get past the twist that doesn't really fit.

Update: Forgot I wrote this. Anyway, more time has passed, and a recent viewing has put more distance between any expectations I had from the book. I could see it more as its own experience, and that raises my estimation of the film. Give it a go sometime.

A 2012 movie, starring Samuel L. Jackson, that no one has heard of? It should tell you something about the quality of this movie already. It should remain unknown to most people, since this simply isn't being a very good movie at all.

It truly amazed me how incredibly poorly this movie got done. It doesn't have any good storytelling in it and the movie is deprived of any good tension or emotions. This is mostly because everything in this movie comes across as stupid and nothing ever works out as anything convincing.

It's also all really because the movie hardly explains anything. Stuff doesn't make sense and just happens. It doesn't make any sense for the Samuel L. Jackson character to go through so much trouble just to mess with one guy's life. He basically is being like a stalker from hell, without any good motivation or character development. It's something that could work. I mean, just look at "The Hitcher". We don't know where this guy comes from and why he's killing people but it works out. For Samuel L. Jackson's character it really doesn't though. His character seems to be too rational, as opposed to just simply being psychotic and he also seems to get absolutely nothing out of killing and messing with people. No pleasure, nor thrills and the same can be said for those who watch this movie; you'll get very little pleasure and thrills out of it.

Yes, I know, it does try to explain a little toward its ending but the ending has a whole bunch of stupid and unlikely developments, that causes nothing to really work out, at least not in an effective and convincing enough way.

Seriously, all of the developments that transpire in this movie make you go; yeah right! Or; why don't the characters just simple do this or that? It's annoying, next to being stupid as well. It doesn't feel like a clever or well thought out movie at all and what makes things worse is that none of it is getting handled good enough in this movie either. No, Chris Fisher clearly isn't being a very good director, as this movie at times painfully demonstrates.

Besides the Samuel L. Jackson character, all of the other characters are lacking as well in this. Luke Wilson isn't a very good or charismatic and likable enough main 'hero'. I know, he was supposed to be an average guy but there is a big difference between being average or boring. Besides, the movie gives you no real good reason to root for him or his family, which again, is also due to the fact that they make some stupid and terribly unconvincing decisions throughout the movie.

Something that also worked out as something highly annoying for me was the musical score by Ryan Beveridge. There is almost nothing more annoying and distracting than a musical score that totally doesn't suit the movie and what is happening on the screen!

One of the worst thrillers I have seen in a while.

4/10

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Meeting Evil (2012)

*** (out of 4)

John (Luke Wilson) has his life ripped from him when he loses his job, falls behind on all his bills and sees no real reason to live but then he meets a mysterious Richie (Samuel L. Jackson) who asks him for help. Richie soon forces John into a wild and violent killing spree but for reasons that the troubled man can't figure out. MEETING EVIL isn't nearly as smart as it tries to be and in the end it's not a completely successful film but I must admit that I've never quite seen anything like it. The entire film is a very strange one as it contains a story that constantly keeps you off guard, some fine performances and a bizarre atmosphere that just hangs over the entire thing. Writer-director Chris Fisher deserves quite a bit of credit by taking a familiar set-up (good man kidnapped by evil) and doing something rather fresh and original with it. I'm going to avoid any major spoilers but I do think the film comes up somewhat short in whatever message it's trying to get across but there's still enough good stuff here to make it worth viewing. One thing are the two lead performances with both Wilson and Jackson turning in fine work. Wilson does a very believable job playing this loser who constantly lets people push him around. I thought the actor made you care for this character while at the same time hating him for not being more of a man. Jackson often falls into playing himself but that's not the case here as he completely loses himself in this character. Jackson plays the part with a certain edge that actually helps the film and especially in some of the darker comic moments, which there are a few of and he makes them very funny. As you'd expect, there's a twist at the end and in a rare case I think it actually works. What I enjoyed most about MEETING EVIL is that I never really knew where it was going to go next. The entire set-up is a pretty crazy one and it doesn't make sense all of the time but it did keep me interested in what was going on and I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next. The film isn't a complete success but I think it's good entertainment.

Firstly I must say that the entire first half of the film kept reminding me of Collateral just with a switch of Tom Cruise to Samuel L. Jackson. Now as far as the film is concerned the plot was very familiar to me, I have seen it before but then again what haven't I saw before. For it's rather simple plot basis you come to expect some pretty good acting throughout, if you are looking for a complex thriller with twists & turns you may not like it, it's all about the acting. Now for the action and basic thrills of the film, they do enough to deliver the viewer a decent portrayal of good guy(Wilson) caught in the web with a very dangerous man named RICHIE (S.L.Jackson). As the film starts Wilson's character named JOHN is literally having THE WORST DAY of his life, his career has gone down the toilet & if that isn't bad enough he comes home to see a foreclosure note on the front door of his beautiful dream home plus he also has two young children to take care of. Then right about when I would be downing a handful of Valium he gets on knock on his door and there stands good old Samuel L. on his door step dressed in a nice suit & hat to boot and his evil presence is felt immediately, plus we know him from his lengthy film career as one real bad son of a @itch. His power and presence is tremendous for every minute.

Sadly, what happened to him earlier is just the starting point of an even worse day for this poor devastated man John. Then with a hard knock on john's door stands Jackson's character Richie arriving at his house complaining of car trouble, asking for a push to pop the clutch because he said it was running on fumes. One thing led to another & before you know it Wilson's character is barreling down the highway with Jackson at the wheel. The events that occur for the rest of the film let's say are pretty interesting to say the very least. Though he doesn't know it yet John is in for the ride of his life. I know that a lot of viewers have seen this plot before, it's been done countless times over the years, but with the right writing and convincing characters you could provide the needed electricity to entertain you for the run time

The acting from Jackson was what made this a good film, I couldn't think of another actor I would want to take his place It's a solid 7/10 partly because the production & cinematography were excellent, I enjoyed the camera work quite a bit. As for the conclusion of the film I was slightly surprised at the end though there was many subtle hints thrown at the audience all throughout the film. I am guessing that this isn't going to have a theater showing, due to the plot & not enough beef for Hollywood to embrace. So many films during 2011 that I thought were amazing went to VOD, I would like to see exactly what criteria they use, whether it's private screenings or what? Anyway again I call this a 7/10

Weird movie - and not in a good way. I really wanted to like this movie, which probably never helps, but the story and character behaviors are so far-fetched it kinda ruined it for me.

I had not read the book, so Sam's character made me wonder about his motives etc which kept me interested to the end.

The acting is solid but the editing seemed a bit off. It felt like a direct-to-DVD on production value for some reason.

Not the worst movie but I can't really recommend it with so many other better movies out there. Keep your expectations low if you're gonna see it.