DERAILED was released last fall to deserved indifference, another Miramax flop that those Weinsteins had let languish on the shelf for a while before unloading during their well-publicized breakup with Disney. Even if they had scheduled and promoted it better, I still think it would have flopped, and for one good reason: Jennifer Aniston.
Based upon James Siegel’s 2003 bestselling thriller – and believe me, we’ll get to that in a minute – DERAILED stars Clive Owen as a happily married ad exec who nonetheless gives in to urges with a mysterious, seductive woman he meets one morning on the train to work. That woman is played by a severely miscast Aniston – not a person one to whom would readily affix the adjectives “mysterious” or “seductive.” “Cloying” and “overrated,” perhaps, but she’s way in over her head here.
Before she and Clive can do the deed, their hotel room is intruded upon by a robber-cum-rapist, who adds insult to injury by then proceeding to engage in an ever-escalating game of blackmail. This thorn in their side is played by Vincent Cassel, the wiry little Frenchman from OCEAN’S TWELVE, and thus marks the first glaring diversion from the source material. In the book (which we reviewed here), Aniston’s character is raped repeatedly over an afternoon by a black man. For whatever reason – I’ll take political correctness for $500, Alex – the race has undergone a whitewashing.
Otherwise, the first two-thirds of DERAILED stick pretty close to the book, even lifting entire scenes of dialogue. Unfortunately, what was punchy on the page drags in the hands of director Mikael Håfström, which does the abrupt, condensed ending no favors. In Siegel’s book, there were several endings, but each with a purpose, adding layer upon layer to an already suspenseful story. Here, it’s your standard revenge climax, and by cutting so much out of it, it’s bereft of the logic Siegel brought to it.
You may be enticed to rent DERAILED by the cover tease of its “unrated” version, but all this amounts to are some quick shots of Cassel dry-humping Rachel, which is more nauseating than anything. The tagline is “They never saw it coming,” but you don’t have to see it at all. Even the less-seasoned viewers among us can guess the film’s “big twist.” BOOKGASM’s verdict: Rent if you must, but the book – though flawed itself – is much, much better. –Rod Lott
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With the addition of this column, Bookgasm has just graduated from “valuable” to “indispensable.” Nice job!