DVD Reviews

The Resident

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Christopher Lee
• Details: US/UK / 91mins (16).

In Throw Momma From The Train, Billy Crystal's creative writing teacher berates Danny De Vito because his short story had "only had two characters... one of which was dead on page two!" The Resident isn't as simple as that - Christopher Lee's spooky neighbour and Lee Pace's ex boyfriend pop in for a look - but it's mighty close.
Hilary Swank plays Juliet Devereau, an ER doctor looking for a new apartment. She can't believe her luck when Max (Morgan) offers her the spacious apartment in his parent's building at a knockdown price. The train makes the apartment rumble and Max is currently doing renovations so there will be plenty of noise but an undeterred Swank signs up and is only too happy to engage in some light flirtation with her landlord. However, she begins to suspect that she is being watched and that there is another person wandering about her apartment while she sleeps...
There's an exciting twist in The Resident: not that the twist itself is exciting but because it happens so early, roughly twenty or so minutes in, it leaves the possibility open that this will twist and twist again. Sadly, it doesn't - The Resident is a one-trick pony, which is a shame because it was shaping up to be quite the tense thriller. Director Antti Jokinen, who also wrote the script, hopes the increasingly jittery back-and-forth between his two leads will lead to edge-of-your-seat anxiety but the characterisations are overcooked.
The person watching Swank as she bathes and sleeps takes it too far: the ecstasy of sharing her electric toothbrush, the bliss of lying in her bed or the eroticism of using her bathtub stops being creepy and becomes unintentionally funny, which ruins the mood Jokinen relies on to make his movie work. Jokinen also fails to give the audience a sense of the maze-like passage structure that exists behind the walls that would allow an intruder the freedom to move throughout the building undetected. The fact that there are only four characters (excluding Swank's hospital colleague who has about two scenes) don't help things. Lee Pace and Christopher Lee barely feature and their roles are severely underwritten.
It's a pity because there's a good movie somewhere in here, but it's lost between doing too little and then doing too much.

Review by Gavin Burke