The Lodger (2009)

the audience applauded

One of my all time favorites.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Unfortunately THE LODGER is one of those films which loses me from the outset thanks to the all-too-glossy "look" and feel. Given the nature of the subject matter this should be a production crying out for grim and gritty styling, but instead this has a slick sheen of the kind seen in US TV shows like CSI.In addiction, the story is nothing to write home about, despite the promise inherent in the premise. It's an erstwhile remake of the silent Hitchcock movie of the same name, presented in the modern day, with two seemingly separate plot strands: weary detectives are tracking a modern day Jack the Ripper, while a houseowner gets to grips with her mysterious new tenant.Sadly, the detective plot is superficial and largely uninteresting, purely because it's so hackneyed; even a solid actor like Alfred Molina can do little with the material, which I found boring more than anything else. Meanwhile, the 'tenant' plot is equally lame, having been done to death in many a 1990s-era psycho-thriller, and the characters are so underwritten as to be cardboard.Lame attempts to build mystery are all too familiar and the double-twist ending is predictable in the extreme. Sadly, there are all too many of these middle-of-the-road thrillers churned out by Hollywood; they contain zero memorable material yet at the same time aren't bad enough to stay in the memory for the wrong reasons. They're just insipid and entirely forgettable.

As a neo-noir, The Lodger is pretty familiar material, but If I'll remember it for anything, (and that's a big 'if') it would be the body count, which is among the highest of anything I've seen in this genre. The story concerns an LAPD detective in search of a killer recreating JAck the Ripper's legacy.I'll give the Lodger a bit of credit for its ability to keep you guessing, but that's just about all that the film is committed to doing. The story is shallow, and much of the dialogue sounds recycled. The acting isn't very good either, and screen time which should have been spent on more intellectual character interaction is wasted on unnecessary montages of time-lapse photography which looks like something from television. Overall, the movie is watchable, but it could've amounted to more.

Based off the same book as Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 adaptation, this version of 'The Lodger' yields a surprisingly strong cast in Alfred Molina, Rachel Leigh Cook, Philip Baker Hall, Donald Logue, Simon Baker, and Hope Davis. It tells the tale of a not-so-happy couple that rents out a room to a mysterious young man and begin to discover deeper secrets about him. . . like that he may be involved in a series of local murders.When I first saw the IMDb page for this film, I was stunned that such a strong cast and solid idea didn't make it very far into theatres, especially with as successful as horror has been so far this year. Unfortunately, low-budget horror re-adaptations tend to have some pretty bad stigmas associated with them ('I Am Omega,' 'The Raven'). . . because they're usually pretty terrible. It's even more difficult to follow in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Nevertheless, feature-rookie David Ondaatje ignored those dangers and went along with the film anyway. I'm pretty glad he did. This adaptation of 'The Lodger,' while it doesn't compare to Hitchcock's in the least, is very entertaining and keeps a solid amount of mystery throughout. It's cheap and it shows, yes, but the great cast, who does a reasonable job, does manage to raise it above the level of low-grade, straight-to-video horrors (like the above mentioned films) to, at least, a respectable and worthy quality. Ondaatje's direction is apt enough, though David A. Armstrong's cinematography and William Flicker's editing do seriously ruin the mood sometimes with random shakicam and MTV-style cuts. The re-adapted script flows well, but the dialogue is a bit awkward sometimes and really needed another edit. Another problem with the script is the overly forceful attempts at creating red herrings. I love mystery as much as the next guy (actually, moreso), but when you're trying to shove false leads down the viewers' throats, you're going to be making it less mysterious and more annoying. Also, it was pretty hilarious that they would send 55-year-old Alfred Molina, who is at least 100 pounds overweight, running after a a murderer instead of 30-year-old Shane West, who's in perfect shape. So logical. Anyway. . . if you're looking for an entertaining mystery-thriller, or if you're a big fan of Jack the Ripper (like me, which is why I at least found it interesting) or previous adaptations of 'The Lodger,' give this one a look. It's not great, but it's an okay time-passer.Final Verdict: 6/10.-AP3-

It could be that I missed something and that I need to re watch this movie. But honestly I already know that I won't do it. "The Lodger" is not a bad movie. It has just enough to make it interesting. A good cast,great cinematography and another take on the Jack the Ripper mythos. Only it suffers greatly from the lack of real suspense and tension. The mystery is there. There are several questions raised you want to be answered. The fact that only a fraction of those questions get explained make it a frustrating affair. Misdirection is a tool often used in thrillers in order to surprise us. And I must admit that the movie does promise a wonderful twist. However the twist is set up in such a way that it leaves too much room for different interpretations which destroys the desired effect. You won't be shocked or surprised,maybe a little bit confused. And such an ending could have been forgiven had the movie been fun to watch. "The Lodger" takes it self so seriously that it undermines the efforts of the cast to make this movie more interesting than it is. At one point you just know how events will play out. The lack of tension,humor and drama only are compensated by your drive to solve the mystery. And the hope that the director succeeded in fooling us in creating one big surprise at the end. But when the credits start to roll you can't shake the feeling that you wasted your time.