The opening scene is a close up of Johnny Depp’s face, which made many of the women in the audience, including my wife, take an instant liking to the film. This is Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) and his thoughts show a confused man arguing with himself over the best course of action in a bad situation. Driving a lonely roda he thinks “Turn Around” but moments later “Don’t go back there”, He can’t decide. He eventually does go back to a cheap motel. He steals a room key from the desk and breaks in on his wife Amy (Maria Bello) and another man, Ted (Timothy Hutton). This scene is dark, gripping, suspenseful, well acted and well directed. The rest of the movie doesn’t fair as well.

Not that it’s bad. The next section is almost as good when we find Mort 6 month’s later living in a cabin in upstate New York. A loud banging on the door awakens him. It turns out to be a strange man from Mississippi calling himself John Shooter (John Turturro) who accuses Mort of stealing a story he had written earlier. Mort scoffs at first but eventually reads the man’s manuscript and finds it extremely similar to a story he had written called ‘Secret Window’.

Through most of the rest of the movie, Depp has the lion’s share of the screen time and does a fine job portraying an author who is increasing afraid of this intruder, and at the same time is still very hurt and confused by the break up with his wife. Turturro does as good or better playing an obsessed hick with no morals who keeps raising the stakes in his game of cat and mouse with the man he believes has wronged him. Shooter’s presence grows steadily and his level of violence grows too. He moves from threats, to killing a pet dog, to murdering two men, all to show how serious he is. And in one very telling line, he says to Mort that, were he (Shooter) to disappear, Mort would be blamed for the killing because his screwdriver was used, and no one would believe that Shooter even existed. And through it all, he keeps repeating his one demand; ”fix my ending”. Which seems like a very strange thing to ask for, even under these bizarre circumstances.

The build up is good and a few red herrings are thrown in so your suspicions change at least a couple of times. A couple of small clues as to the real story are there, but they are quite subtle and easily missed. The similarity between Shooter’s name and the birthplace of Mort’s wife's new boyfriend; the way Shooter knows things he shouldn’t know, like that Mort was at his Amy’s house the day before but didn’t go in; the timing of some events, such as Amy’s house burning down before Mort could retrieve some vital information; the UPS package that wasn’t opened when he left the post office but was opened before he got home; the “I don’t smoke” sequences; Amy’s ‘premonitions’ Ted sowing up at the cabin; all are clues or red herrings that the viewer must sift through to find the conclusion.

But it’s the conclusion that disappointed me. The surprise ending did surprise my (I never read the Steven King Novella), but the presentation seemed poor. First, it was too abrupt. A few more real clues and a slow growing revelation would have been more satisfying. I should have been in fear, or in awe, or in shock at this point, instead I kept thinking back to the old Patty Duke show which made better use of special effects than this sequence. Poor effects are distracting, but even that’s not really the biggest problem. I hate to say this of Steven King, or of the screenplay writer David Koepp who I think did a fantastic job with ‘The Paper’, but it’s the writing that was weak. I said it was too abrupt, but it was also a bit of a stretch to believability. I could easily believe that a person could do the things done here, but I find it hard to believe that a person would act quite this way while doing them. Although a few hints at Mort’s depression and possible instability were given, nothing supports his talking to himself in the mirror and suddenly becoming a different person. Usually a story like this will have some ‘trigger’ event that forces the character to question his own reality and discover something he didn’t know was there. This film had no trigger, and therefore no reason or motivation for the characters changes. This made it hard for me to buy it. Now some might argue that the trigger was discovering his wife’s affair. That may have started the ball rolling, but still doesn’t explain why, 6 months later, he goes through such a complete transformation.

In all, Depp did a fine job as usual, but if he didn’t get an Oscar for “Captain Jack Sparrow”, he won’t get one for this somewhat less impressive role. Turturro, if anything, was better than Depp, except that his character was a little 2 dimensional, as a good obsessive psychopath should be! Bello did an excellent job but didn’t get enough screen time to matter. The same can be said for Charles Dutton as Ken Karsch, a private detective / bodyguard that Mort hires to protect him from Shooter. Hutton was actually disappointingly flat in a role that, though small, could have been played more dramatically. And I guess once you get a few big names like Depp, Hutton and Bello, you don’t care because the rest of the cast stunk. The Sheriff, played by Len Cariou, was unconvincingly detached and inept. It’s hard to believe he’s had 30 movie roles when you see how little effort was put into this one. And the Mail Clerk, played by Gillian Ferrabee, was singularly memorable for the poorest acting I’ve seen this side of a High School play.

Bottom line? Depp fans will love it, and Steven King fans should see it, but true ‘mystery’ fans won’t be impressed and most people are better off waiting for it’s cable release so you can watch it and not feel you’ve wasted any money.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age