Derailed has all the thrills of a go-kart ride.
There is a mystery peculiar to the film industry over which we've mulled in these pages before: Why do studios persist in giving double-entendre titles which invite, nay,
implore
critics and other wicked-minded folk to twist them to their own nefarious purposes?
Intolerable Cruelty, The Neverending Story
…and now added to their vast number is
Derailed
, which is-wait for it-yes, a total train wreck.
***image1***Those in my acquaintance persist in referring to this two-hour-plus disaster as "that Jennifer Aniston movie," which is strange considering she's barely even in it after she's done her time as the Designated Plot Device,
comme ça
: Suburban dad Charles Schine (
Closer
's Clive Owen) is tootling off to work one morning when he discovers he has no cash for his train ticket. Hey, presto-leggy femme fatale Lucinda (Aniston) comes to his rescue. Problem one: Trying to wrap your brain around the whole concept of Rachel Geller as a femme fatale. Problem two: Dark, hulking Clive Owen is clearly James Bond, not a suburban dad. And problem three: They're both married. Married, married,
married
. All this apparently means, though, is that they have to drink more alcohol before they're willing to call their respective spouses to claim, "I'll be working late tonight…very, very late…don't wait up…that's how late I'll be…" (Movie Rule #815: Spouses are incredibly stupid.) But while they are, as it were,
in media res
, an unknown assailant (Vincent Cassel, who joins the rest of the miscast in being markedly unscary) breaks into their seedy motel room, takes all their cash, beats the sense out of Charles and rapes Lucinda.
This scene, which should have been terrifying, is rendered disturbingly
funny
by the fact that Aniston is so very miscast; a graphic, unexpected death later in the film is similarly entertaining, which leaves you feeling like you're a ***image2***Terrible Person-though in actuality it's just that Swede Mikael Håfström has directed a terrible movie. Any rate, our ersatz adulterers having been suitably punished for their attempted wrongdoing, they slink their separate ways-until the perpetrator begins to blackmail Charles for large sums of cash.
It's at this point the movie really starts to cover ground in its effort to be as preposterous as possible; not only are we asked to believe Charles would obligingly drain his bank account for a runty thug with a fake French accent-to heck with that gravely ill daughter who needs a kidney transplant!-but also that his wife wouldn't notice. Finally,
Derailed
crosses so far over the line of idiocy that it becomes shamelessly enjoyable; besides, if we'd wanted Hitchcock we'd have rented-here it comes-
Strangers on a Train.
