Pursued (2004)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The acting is decent and Christian Slater is certainly right for the role of headhunter/stalker. He comes across as creepy and charming all at the same time. Unfortunately the plot got to the point where you were asking "This guy Ben is supposed to be smart? I wouldn't hire a guy that is this stupid." There were so many ways he could have extricated himself. Record almost any of their phone conversations, have other people listen to their conversations, get the security company involved earlier and turn the tables, tell anyone/everyone what the guy was doing to him, etc. His boss, with brain tumor, even told him early on how the headhunters will often stop at nothing to recruit-- including bugging and hidden video (including a video camera in pen). Why the heck would he take a pen from the psycho or let his daughter have a gift from him after being told that? And why did he not scan for bugs and video cameras in his home and office much earlier? It makes one wonder if anyone even read this script before they started shooting. With a few changes it could have been an OK movie-- instead of making me sad for having wasted time on it. Toward the end the use of the cool high tech tracking system was kind of too-little too-late and pointless-- but even at this point he could have sent the police to his house to catch him breaking in. Using the tracking system would have made more sense earlier on. So bottom line: not worth your time. Feel sorry for the cast because there is no way they could have saved this picture with such a badly written plot.

Recap: Ben Keats is the director of small but upcoming company Viztrax (or something like it) that is about to hit it big. His success has not gone unnoticed and soon he gets a call from the executive head hunter Vincent Palmer. Palmer is brutally (literally) ruthless and won't take no for an answer. Palmer's methods are obsessive. Keats first thinks he can just turn him away but Palmer then begins to stalk him and his family. And Keats start to think that Palmer's methods are not so innocent. At the same time he got to handle his family that is starting to crack under the pressure.Comments: A thriller that quickly ran out of promise and got tiresome. The character Palmer is meant to be very obsessive and oppressive, yes, but this felt like over the top. I generally like Slater but this time he mishandled his role, or got the wrong directions from the director. And really, the set up doesn't hold. A homicidal head hunter? Really? But the worst fault was a classic one. One that many second rate thrillers have fallen into before, but this one seemed a need to explore once more. The one were the supposed victim thinks he can do it all himself so much that he is over and far beyond the line of stupidity. He don't communicate with his wife. Not at all. Some of that can be explained as they recently has hit a rough patch. But when Ben get pretty sure that Vincent is seriously dangerous, and threatens his family and Vincent still doesn't have any real hold on him yet, why don't he go to the police? Or at least the security consultant that his company already has hired? Instead he plays along, inevitably getting caught in Vincent's net.The cast is actually rather good, Gillows, Slater are joined by Warren and Clarke Duncan. But they never seem to get something going. And that sums up the entire movie. It never got going. There are many thrillers out there that are a lot better. Watch them instead.3/10

I enjoyed the movie, but with some reservations. I've been a Slater fan for years and liked this role for him. My problem with this is the way the main characters (Gil Bellows) had such difficulty in coming to grips with industrial sabotage. This guy is a computer genius and works in electronics but it took almost half the movie to realize that he was bugged. This even after he was given warnings by a corporate surveillance expert. The way he let his wife and child interact with Slater's character was totally out of this world. Maybe I speak only for myself but if someone harasses me and mine, I'm not cordial and I will not allow my family to associate with them either. That's not anti-social, it's logical to protect their own family. The action was OK if anti-climatic and was very predictable. One area I didn't understand was the first CEO that was introduced and the murder of his wife. He was so worried about being arrested that he didn't seem irritated at Slater over the murder. Is this normal behavior or not? It kinda sets the setting for the whole movie. I did like what he told the lead when he confronted him, "sign with him or kill him." I guess it worked out that way. Overall not a bad movie.

(Spoiler Alert) Like a hungry leopard totally focused on his pray we see at the beginning of the film "Pursued" corporate recruiter Vincent Plamer, Christian Slater, zero in on his helpless victim business executive John Blakely, Kevin McNulty,and get him to join the firm that he's being employed by. Blakely was forced to quit his family business, and let it go bankrupt, by Plamer blackmailing him in his wife's death whom he murdered. Now working for Seattle high-tech giant Resdat who's CEO William Carey, Andrew Stevens, gives Palmer a million dollars and instructions to tear top executive Ben Keats, Gil Bellows,away from the up and coming chemical company Viztrak. The company is about to release a low-jack-type formula that when ingested can track down lost children missing persons pets or escaped criminals anywhere on earth. Plamer at first tries to get Bellows to quit Viztrak and take over the management of Carey's company by offering millions in salary and stock options. Still Bellows want's nothing to do with Carey or his firm Resdat feeling obligated and being loyal to the owner of Viztrak Franklin, Michael Clark Duncan, who he looks up to as a father figure and well as his good friend and employer. It's when he feels that money can't reel Bellows in that Plamer turns obsessive pestering and harassing not only Ben Bellows but his wife Emily, Estella Warren, and even his young daughter Alison, Conchita Campball, night and day on the phone! I started to wonder just how much Plamer's monthly cell-phone bill was? in the thousands? Plamer also goes as far as trying to split up the workers at the Viztrak firm by planting rumors that Bellows was leaving it for Resdat. Plamer even plants bugs in Bellows home office and even car to get all the info he can on him driving the poor man almost out of his mind.Getting the confidential information, by having a bug planted in his home on Viztark's CEO Franklin's inoperable brain tumor Plamer sneaks into his mansion and shoots him to death leaving a suicide note, and gun in Fanklin's hand, blaming Bellows actions of leaving his company for driving him to kill himself. At Franklin's funeral Plamer shows up inciting Bellows, who instinctively knew that he was behind Franklin's murder not suicide, to attack him. Which put the hysterical Bellows in the county jail and right where Plamer wanted him; to sign on the dotted line and join Carey's company Resdat if Bellows wants him to drop all charges.The ending of the movie "Pursued" is a bit of a let-down with Bellows and his friend and corporate fraud expert Robert Langford, Scott Hyland, tricking Plamer into drinking the Viztrak formula and thus be able to track down his movements in order to trap him in committing a felony. That would put Plamer away from pestering people like Bellows, and is family, once in for all. It was hard to believe that Palmer could have gotten away with his sleazy activities all this time and not once be set up and caught by the local police and those he was victimizing. You also also why Bellows never went to the police to report him in the first place? Plamer himself was so boastful about his underhanded actions, including the murder of John Blakely's wife, that all it would have taken was for the police to check up on his past criminal adventures that he so openly bragged about! Plamer even bragged about his crimes when he was pressuring Bellows in jail, where the walls have ears, in order to get him to join the chemical firm Resdat or end up behind bars himself.