Trashy exploitation flick seeking serious cinematic bonafides
Image Courtesy of IMPawards.com
Director: Steve Shill
Notable Cast: Beyonce Knowles, Ali Larter, Idris Elba
Plenty of films try to play coy about their Jerry Springer appeal, and Obsessed is one of them. Playing the Fatal Attraction plot line to the fullest, Obsessed is a film that tries to embrace serious cinematic bonafides with a catfight worthy of professional wrestling as its grand finale.
The plot is pretty simple. Derrick Charles (Idris Elba) has the perfect wife in the stunning Sharon (Beyonce Knowles) and a young son, complete with a brand new house. The Executive VP of a financial advising firm, he has it all at his fingertips. That is until beautiful temp Lisa (Ali Larter) barges her way into his life. Despite his spurned advances, she continues to try and develop an actual affair to go with the imaginary one she’s having in her mind with him, leading to the eventual bloody conclusion. And if the film embraced it’s B-movie roots, it’d a riotous occasion.
The problem is that the film takes itself seriously as a thriller, leading to it being a self-parody throughout the film. Plenty of moments that are played seriously are unintentionally hilarious; everything is so serious and uptight that the film’s ludicrous combination of mediocre acting and ham-fisted dialogue has everything in place for a film that is self aware of its “lurid” nature (read: ridiculous on its face) and just runs with it. Too bad the film isn’t aware of this and has all the pretensions of a serious, dramatic thriller. The film is ripe for everyone to go completely over the top like a sexed up Tyler Perry film and just stops short of going completely into the moment.
It’s a shame, really, because the film’s mediocre at best acting is ripe for parody. Beyonce and Ali Larter are wonderfully bad in their roles, bringing an odd sense of humor to roles that one imagines aren’t designed with them in mind. Their final fight at the end, in which Lisa takes it too far and Sharon has to solve things “her way,” is ludicrous on its face and yet is entertaining.
Obsessed is a third rate thriller with some charm if viewed in the right manner. Unfortunately in the making of the film the inherit trash factor and B-movie magic that could’ve elevated direct to video material into something of a true parody as opposed to merely being a self parody.
FINAL RATING (ON A SCALE OF 1-5 BUCKETS):
