Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello
Directed by: David Keopp
Running Time: 1 hr 42 mnt
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence/terror, sexual content and language.
Movies adapted from Stephen King's story has their own variety which could become extrimists to one another. From the unwatchable (since it was so freakingly bad) Children of the Corn series to the excellent movie ever made such as The Shawshank Redemption. Secret Window falls somewhere in between, albeit closer to the latter than the former.
Secret Window is yet another story by Stephen King that tell tale about a writer's circumstances. Johnny Depp stars as Mort Rainey a writer that chooses to live in an isolated cabin near lake six months after he found out that his wife was cheating on him. His dull, mess life was getting even messier when a knock in the door one afternoon awoke him and leave him with terror for most of the movie as the man on the door with thick Mississippi accent accusing him for stealing his story. This man is John Shooter portrayed marvelously violent by John Turturro.
The thriller hence the twist of the movie was an easy to guess and would only be surprising to an unattentive viewer. To those hardcore fan of Stephen King (such as me), would felt that it even more easier to guess the twist up to the point where Mort opened the door of his cabin to find Shooter there with battered manuscript and accusation of Mort's plagiarism.
But, the guessable twist had been considered well enough by the director as he doesn't bother to do harder than he should to conceal the twist plot given. He is just right to put a hint here and there in order to build a logical path to the conclusion and doesn't get suddenly jump to the conclusion after the high effort in concealment of the plot like many thrillers suffer nowadays. And it earns this movie another point of reward from your lovable reviewer.
What interest most of this movie was Depp and Turturro's performance. We could still see the resemblance of Cap'n Jack Sparrow when Depp was doing his monologue, very intriguing however, as he is the man who tried to escape from his past and stranded in the lonely cabin in the middle of nowhere. But you'll find it lovingly charming nonetheless. And Turturro is believably cruel as if we put ourselves in the Mort's position we would be frightened as well.
All in all, this movie wasn't that great, i'd say that this is a mediocre thriller with hardly no surprises at all. But it's so lovely (and entertaining) to see Depp's performance here and the ending? don't bother to ask, the ending is (gimana gw nyebut "gw banget" dalam bahasa Inggris?) what would i call a "satisfying" ending. A few moments before the movie concluded I had a hunch that this movie would had an disappointing ending but fortunately, my hunch was left as a hunch and that's why i'd call the ending as a 'satisfying' ending.
Poster coming, up next
Rating: ***/**** -- One of the best of Depp's performance.