Fear (1996)

People are voting emotionally.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie is visually strong, suspenseful and extremely entertaining but the way in which it depicts family tensions is its greatest achievement. A teenage girl's relationship with a young man from the wrong side of the tracks soon sparks off numerous problems that are down to her father's over-protective instincts and the girl's natural rebelliousness but the dramatic possibilities are then heightened even further due to the specific dynamics that exist within the girl's reconstituted family.Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) is the naïve 16-year-old who, after previously living with her mother, moves into her father's suburban home in Seattle. Steven's (William Petersen) an overworked architect who lives with his second wife Laura (Amy Brenneman) and her young son Toby (Christopher Gray). When Nicole and her high school classmate Margo Masse (Alyssa Milano) go to a local rave, Nicole meets David McCall (Mark Wahlberg) and is instantly attracted to him. He's exceptionally polite, softly spoken and seems very gentle and considerate. David instantly makes a positive impression on Laura and Toby when he visits their home but Steven instinctively takes a dislike to him. This naturally creates a rift between him and Nicole and makes her even more determined to continue the relationship.Things suddenly change one day when David sees Nicole hugging her school friend Gary (Todd Caldecott) and is overcome with jealousy and rage. In a sudden and violent outburst, he brutally attacks Gary and roughly pushes Nicole to the ground. After the attack, Nicole is left with a black eye and immediately stops seeing David. This incident reinforces Steven's negative feelings towards David but it isn't long before Nicole surprisingly rekindles the relationship. Steven is incensed and angrily forbids David from seeing his daughter again. David, however, is totally obsessed with Nicole and as his fury grows, the revenge he takes on the Walker family becomes progressively more violent until his actions eventually lead to a terrifying conclusion.The ways in which conflict grows between the generations is shown very effectively in this drama because, whilst it's natural for parents to want to protect their children from pain, exploitation or bad experiences, it's also entirely natural for teenagers to want to explore life in the way that their instincts dictate and not be given advice which they just regard as being interfering by parents who want to spoil their fun. The tensions in the Walker family are also complicated by the step-parents' desire to be accepted by their adopted children and also the uncertainty that children can feel about a parent's new spouse.Reese Witherspoon does a great job of portraying the mixture of naivety and growing maturity that's typical of a 16-year-old and Mark Wahlberg is particularly good in the scenes that require him to express his anger. William Petersen provides the other standout performance as the father who's left frazzled by being overworked, having to contend with his concerns about his daughter and trying to cope with his wife's unreasonable attitude to his work commitments. Overall, this is a movie which provides some pertinent observations on family life in the 1990s in a story that's perfectly paced and delivered in a style that's never dull.

When she and her best friend, Margo, go out to a party one night, Nicole meets mysterious David, who she ends up getting together with. After a couple of weeks, Nicole realises that David is becoming possessive and gets very jealous when she talks to other men. David beats up one of Nicole's male friends because he's seen walking Nicole home. When she ends up breaking up with David, he's not happy, and does everything to try and get her back, when that doesn't work, he and his friends break into Nicole's home.......When this film was first released way back in '96, i thought it was a great thriller. After all, it was the nineties, and we'd been spoilt with these psycho type films earlier on in the decade, and hadn't had a decent one since Unlawful Entry.Well, my movie tastes have diversely changed in nearly twenty years, and I wanted to see if it held up as much as I'd hoped. Well it has, and it hasn't. Wahlberg and Witherspoon are an age away from this, and unfortunately in some scenes, Wahlberg is laughably wooden rather than sinister, his David just isn't edgy as I thought he once was, more autonomous.But it's suitably silly, looks really good, and you could stick a pin in the film the moment when you, Petersen and everyone else knows that David is a bad egg. It's one simple line.'Nicole, get me a coke'Cue the dramatic incidental music, and the look from Petersen, as if to say 'he didn't say please!!!!!! Good heavens Nicole.....Fear for your life!!!!'But, with all these shortcomings, its a lot of fun, Petersen is brilliant as usual, and it gets very Nast in some scenes.If you've seen the majority of these nice people turning psycho movies, then you know what's going to happen, when it's happening, why it's happening, and how it's going to end.And I wouldn't have it any other way....

The sixteen year-old teenager Nicole Walker (Reese Witherspoon) has moved to the house by the lake of her father, the architect Steve Walker (William Petersen), to live with her stepmother Laura (Amy Brenneman) and her brother Toby (Christopher Gray). Her best friends are Margo Masse (Alyssa Milano) and Gary Rohmer (Todd Caldecott) that study with her in the high school. When Nicole meets David McCall (Mark Wahlberg) in a night-club, she has a crush on and dates him. David becomes obsessed by Nicole and one day he sees her friend Gary kissing and hugging her and he hits him. Nicole breaks with him but David continues to follow her. Steve decides to investigate the young man and he finds that he is an orphan that has spent most of his life in reformatories. The hell breaks loose in Nicole's life when David kills Gary and trashes the Mustang of her father. Steve breaks in his house and destroys everything inside. Now David and his gang go to Steve's house to payback. "Fear" is a good movie, with great story and performances. I saw this movie for the first time in the late 90's on VHS and last Friday I saw it again on DVD, and the plot seems to be more realistic in the present days of violence and fear in many worldwide cities. This is also a great opportunity to see Reese Witherspoon very young and cute, and Mark Wahlberg perfect performing a manipulative psychopath. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Medo" ("Fear")

There's a lot about "Fear" that's pretty cliché. The charming boyfriend who turns out to be a controlling, violent, psychopathic, obsessive guy who can't let go of the girl he's "fallen in love" with in spite of the fact that neither she nor her family want him around anymore. I can't say that struck me as particularly creative, nor did I find the bulk of the story especially interesting. It does, however, have some things going for it.First, I have to give credit to Drew Barrymore and Mark Wahlberg. Setting aside the fact that both were a little older than the characters they were playing, they were quite good in their roles as the young & naive Nicole and the charming psychopath David who sweeps her off her feet. Both were in the very early stages of their respective acting careers, but the lack of experience didn't show. They were convincing. The rest of the cast didn't really measure up to their standards, but the characters were interesting enough. I could certainly relate to William Petersen as Nicole's dad as he gets more and more concerned about this relationship his daughter is having, even though for some reason Petersen didn't really strike home with me in the role. And I have to say that although the movie almost lost me with the silly scene where David tattoos "Nicole 4 Eva" on his own chest, and while most of the story really didn't make that much of a connection with me, the last 20 minutes or so turns out to be a pretty good ride. It also is pretty standard for this kind of movie - as Nicole's entire family ends up doing battle with David and the bad guys, etc., etc., but it was very well done and exciting.This isn't a bad movie. It's perhaps a bit too much driven by clichés and a storyline that isn't very original, but it's well made and it has enough to keep the viewer interested. (6/10)