By Emilio Frenk
Director: Jon Cassar
Cast: Morris Chestnut, Regina Hall, Michael K. Williams, Romany Malco, Glenn Morshower, Theo Rossi and Jaz Sinclair.
Rating: Poor.
As usual thrillers hit the theaters and this time was with “When the Bough Breaks” and this film was everything but engaging and entertaining.
The movie tells the story of a John Taylor (Morrist Chestnut) a succesful attorney and his wife Laura (Regina Hall) a chef in New Orleans who have always dreamed of having a child.
After suffering three miscarriages, the life of the Taylor’s will change when Anna Walsh (Jaz Sinclair) a surrogate mother is willing to give the Taylor´s her child.
The Taylor´s are grateful for Anna’s action and invite her to their home. The problem will start when Anna begins to develop a crush on John that will lead to an obsession that might cause the family to breakup unless The Taylor´s avoid the situation putting everything they have built at risk.
There is nothing that I acknoledge from“When The Bough Breaks” The story doesn´t make any sense and is totally ridiculous making this movie slow from the start to the finish.
I consider this a ripoff from a classical thriller from 1987 “Fatal Atraction” which is ten times much better and with performances that are more convincing.
Instead of being engaged with the film, it alienated me and I never saw an element of tension and the performances; as a matter of fact it looked like a soap opera due to their efforts of being real when they weren´t .
It could have been a very interesting concept but the execution was terrible. The script was very badly written with cheap dialogueand the direction from Jon Cassar, who did episodes of the series “24” lead to boredom and laughter.
The movie didn´t have any original elements and it was predictable from the moment it started until the end.
A thriller needs to be engaging and a rule of thumb is that has to have a smart pacing despite of the length of the film.
We have seen thrillers of two hours many times and they are engaging and this is because the story was solid leading to convincing performances. One example of this point I´m illustrating is “Marathon Man” from 1976 where Dustin Hoffman gives a memorable performance as well as Laurence Olivier as a sadistic nazi and this is thanks to a wonderful screenplay written by William Goldman, who won 2 Academy Awards for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men”.
The reason why movies like “Play Misty for Me” which marked Clint Eastwood´s directorial debut and “Fatal Attraction” were both memorable and iconic was the fact that they both had very good stories which landed to sharp and good directing and memorable performances.
That being said I put “When the Bough Breaks” as not only one of the worst thrillers I have seen in a while but one of the worst movies of2016 and please do not waste your time and energy on this film.