DVD Reviews

Butterfly on a Wheel

• Rating:
• Director: Mike Barker
• Starring: Gerard Butler
• Details: Can / 95 mins / (15)

The Randalls are the archetypal perfect family - husband Neil (Butler) is some variety of successful business tycoon, while beautiful wife Abby (Bello) stays home to look after their equally beautiful six year old daughter, Sophie. Without warning, and seemingly without motive, their daughter is kidnapped by a crazed Pierce Brosnan. But it's not their money he's after. For the next 24 hours he forces the Randalls to do everything he says, culminating in an order to kill. The line "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" a quotation from Alexander Pope, is evoked twice during the course of the film and is similarly of double significance in this context. Firstly, the whole film is a sadistic exercise in torture, asking the timeless question, "How far would you go for the ones you love?" Though this is surely an attempt to profess some profound universal truth about human nature, it is entirely undermined by the lack of strong motives and coherent plot. Secondly, when the reasons behind the whole ordeal are finally revealed, the frustration is not diminished by the irony that it highlights the title's allusion to putting massive effort into achieving something very minor. The twist at the end is less a surprise than it is overkill, leaving you feeling purposely misled - as if the entire story and all its protagonists have been misrepresented up to that point. And though proceedings should be redeemed somewhat by Brosnan, by far the most charismatic and proficient of the players here, he serves only to confuse and distract as he struggles to marry his appalling Northern accent (you'd think an Irish man would know better) with a below-par script.

Review by Jenny Mulligan