Film Reviews

Shelter

• Rating:
• Director:
• Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
• Details: USA/112mins/16

A thriller desperately trying to throw the audience off at every corner, just as writer Michael Cooney's previous screenplay effort Identity did to mostly stellar effect, Shelter is instead a whole lot of stupid wrapped in moody packaging. Casting Julianne Moore as a psychiatrist, the films awkward handling of multiple personality disorder is not the only uncomfortable thing about it. Jonathon Rhys Myers is saddled with some of the stupidest characterisation in recent memory; as his possession/disorder see's him take on the voice and demeanour of the latest victim of, eh, whatever the hell it is that was wrong with them. Needless to say, unintentional hilarity continually ensues.
Moore plays a single mother whose husband met the business end of a knife on Christmas Eve a few years back, leaving her to raise their young daughter. Throwing herself into her work as a criminal psychiatrist, she is introduced to Myers troubled out-patient by her father - who thinks she will find the case fascinating. Crippled one minute, walking the next, Myers is about eleven bananas short of a dozen, and a walking advertisement for the reintroduction of shock therapy. Fascinating yes; he's also fallen out of the crazy tree, hitting every branch on the way down. As Moore delves deeper in the case, she finds her cynicism of the supernatural tested at every corner.
Closer in tone to the American remake of The Ring, Shelter does have some foreboding atmosphere and is shot in a sufficiently grimy manner. Moore is always a welcome presence as well, but seems to be getting to that point in her career where she's leaning towards working consistently, as opposed to picking the right roles. If she wasn't standing out here, something really would be wrong. Myers is just completely miscast; the directors constantly leaving him stranded, uttering absurd dialogue, whilst looking about as scary as a Hugo Boss model can.
The script is nowhere as clever as it thinks it is and the setup in general a recipe for mediocrity. The resulting film dutifully obliges.

Review by Mike Sheridan