As I was waiting for another film to come on TV suddenly this title popped in and I was like why not give it a try. I've got on board without knowing
the story, let it all happen before me but a few names there made me more interested in seeing this: director Roland Joffé ("The Mission"), writer
Nicholas Kazan ("Reversal of Fortune"), and Emilie de Ravin ("LOST"). Since it was a surprise movie it wasn't like back in my younger days when I could
create expectations (good or bad). Word of advice I can provide you to avoid embarassment or pure disappointment is don't bother watching. It's a mountain
of cliches after cliches, typical from softcore movies - and trust me, there are better are out there and I'm not talking about the sex scenes, the plot of
those movies are truly constructed without loose ends.
A clunker of a movie where infidelity and money are the name of the game; Emilie plays a lovely wife married to a rich man who just makes a new insurance policy (you know where this is going) and a third part arrives to stir things up, which is the insurance guy, a hot young guy (Leo Howard) and it's love at first sight. That first meeting is unbelievable, with this guy being really intrusive about the couple's marriage and we're just following to see how the sparks of excitment fly high between the hot couple. By now you can figure out he's a con-artist, someone will get killed and money will be the main treasure hunt. Here's a movie too obvious for its own sake, it's cheap suspense for beginners who haven't seen enough movies in life. My sixth sense for movies was right all along that a cheap thrill would be the final result but this wreck was predictable for 90% of the time; the little plot twists concerning the husband and the insurance hunk were made this worth watching.
What can be learned from "Scorned"? Everything is really about money and looks. Well, as for the latter it seems odd that successful people at their jobs and have amazing sculptural bodies, society's definition of success, are so miserable - heart matters are always secondary. But outside of the story, it's really all about money and it applies to everyone involved - TV movies don't pay that much but they pay and people gotta survive (though not on other's suffering eg we, in the audience). In the words of director Michael Cimino, it comes a down time in your career when you don't do what you want but you do the best that is available. Mr. Joffe was a great film director but ever since the 1990's he went from satisfying good films to messy things (something happened on that "Super Mario Bros" set that not only got him fired but practically banished from Hollywood). I don't blame him entirely because he had a good cast in spite of everything.
On the other hand, the once-talented Nicholas Kazan as a writer here was a huge disappointment. Scripts can't survive solely on plot twists and thrilling scenes; gotta show us the drama, gotta make us care. All of the characters are fake, deplorable and easily seduced; and the actors though doing a nice job (some of them) they were given laughable dialogues, awkward moments and not much to work around. I was like "What happened, man? You were a good storyteller."
The guilty pleasure was the leading man, an excellent choice to play a sexy seductive machine that works his way on both men and women, and it's easy to understand why people fall for him besides the fact of him saying he knows people deep down inside the facade. And the other surprise, possibly the best acting around, was Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa playing the total opposite of his action villainesque roles: the insurance company boss. It was so unusual to see him playing a common man, reliable and not dangerous at all; he's quite comfortable acting outside of his league and I admired him on this.
If it's not just the story...I was bothered with the tame sexual sequences and the ridiculously fake mountains that appear on a pivotal moment - so obvious to see it's all done during editing. The few qualities I gave you are not enough to make it a suggestion to watch unless you're into unintenional laughter or enjoys to waste some time watching a bad movie. 5/10
A clunker of a movie where infidelity and money are the name of the game; Emilie plays a lovely wife married to a rich man who just makes a new insurance policy (you know where this is going) and a third part arrives to stir things up, which is the insurance guy, a hot young guy (Leo Howard) and it's love at first sight. That first meeting is unbelievable, with this guy being really intrusive about the couple's marriage and we're just following to see how the sparks of excitment fly high between the hot couple. By now you can figure out he's a con-artist, someone will get killed and money will be the main treasure hunt. Here's a movie too obvious for its own sake, it's cheap suspense for beginners who haven't seen enough movies in life. My sixth sense for movies was right all along that a cheap thrill would be the final result but this wreck was predictable for 90% of the time; the little plot twists concerning the husband and the insurance hunk were made this worth watching.
What can be learned from "Scorned"? Everything is really about money and looks. Well, as for the latter it seems odd that successful people at their jobs and have amazing sculptural bodies, society's definition of success, are so miserable - heart matters are always secondary. But outside of the story, it's really all about money and it applies to everyone involved - TV movies don't pay that much but they pay and people gotta survive (though not on other's suffering eg we, in the audience). In the words of director Michael Cimino, it comes a down time in your career when you don't do what you want but you do the best that is available. Mr. Joffe was a great film director but ever since the 1990's he went from satisfying good films to messy things (something happened on that "Super Mario Bros" set that not only got him fired but practically banished from Hollywood). I don't blame him entirely because he had a good cast in spite of everything.
On the other hand, the once-talented Nicholas Kazan as a writer here was a huge disappointment. Scripts can't survive solely on plot twists and thrilling scenes; gotta show us the drama, gotta make us care. All of the characters are fake, deplorable and easily seduced; and the actors though doing a nice job (some of them) they were given laughable dialogues, awkward moments and not much to work around. I was like "What happened, man? You were a good storyteller."
The guilty pleasure was the leading man, an excellent choice to play a sexy seductive machine that works his way on both men and women, and it's easy to understand why people fall for him besides the fact of him saying he knows people deep down inside the facade. And the other surprise, possibly the best acting around, was Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa playing the total opposite of his action villainesque roles: the insurance company boss. It was so unusual to see him playing a common man, reliable and not dangerous at all; he's quite comfortable acting outside of his league and I admired him on this.
If it's not just the story...I was bothered with the tame sexual sequences and the ridiculously fake mountains that appear on a pivotal moment - so obvious to see it's all done during editing. The few qualities I gave you are not enough to make it a suggestion to watch unless you're into unintenional laughter or enjoys to waste some time watching a bad movie. 5/10