Secret Window Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)March 16th, 2004
SECRET WINDOW
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2004 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
In 1997 a modest little thriller called "Breakdown" caught me quite off guard. The film starred Kurt Russell as a convincing Everyman whose wife, during a cross-country road trip, inexplicably goes missing. As directed by Jonathan Mostow (who went on to make "U-571" and Governor Arnold's "T3") it was taut, credible, and thoroughly entertaining and featured an energetic and immensely likable performance by Russell in the lead.
Johnny Depp's latest venture, "Secret Window," is very similar to Mostow's film in that it's also taut, credible, and thoroughly entertaining and features an energetic and immensely likable lead performance. And, like "Breakdown," it somehow snuck up on me.
Here I was expecting a humdrum, based-on-the-book-by-Stephen-King affair but what I got was something completely different, an alternatively clever, funny, and scary motion picture that delivers all the way to the bank.
I expected Depp to be good--he's great--but I didn't anticipate the film to be quite so smart, and that's the key to "Secret Window"'s doing. (That was also part of "Breakdown"'s success. Russell's character pretty much did what you or I would do in his position and empathizing so intimately with our central protagonist elevated the film from decent to excellent.)
Depp's Mort Rainey, a lazily successful crime novelist menaced by a plagiarism-accusing backwoods hick (John Turturro), does all the right things in "Secret Window." He alerts the police. He hires a private investigator. He promises to end the bitter, life-threatening business amicably, by producing his original article published in an "Ellery Queen" magazine several years before Mississippi-bred John Shooter (Turturro) claims *he* wrote the story.
There is a scene in which Mort doesn't notify the authorities when you know he should have but he's understandably freaked out by the circumstances (let's just say it's screenwriter David Koepp's *second* inappropriate use of a screwdriver) and we can forgive him this rare moment of misjudgment. Koepp, who also directs, is efficient and skillful and the supporting players--Mario Bello as Mort’s ex, Timothy Hutton (where's *he* been lately?) as her boyfriend Ted, and Charles S. Dutton as a no nonsense-y ex-cop--lend the film a solidity its psychological storyline demands.
Depp, again, is terrific and this would be a wonderful performance in its
own right but when you figure he's coming off perhaps the strongest performance of his career, that of Capt. Jack Sparrow in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" (for which Depp picked up his first Oscar® nod), this makes his endangered writer extra special. He talks to himself and his mangy cur, Chico (played by... Chico!). He munches on Doritos®. And he's got this cute habit of cracking his jaw, causing his eyes to roll involuntarily in his head like he's just been backhanded by a buxom Tortuga courtesan. It's another eccentric--and uncommonly good--Depp-th charge (the film made me want to rent Depp's entire back catalog. How long has he been this good, I wondered?).
"Secret Window" comes out of nowhere. It's surprisingly enjoyable--amusing, intelligent, creepy, smartly acted and classily directed--and best of all it's got Johnny Depp in what, I suspect, will quickly become another classic Johnny Depp performance. Miss this one at your peril!
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David N. Butterworth
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
