Surprisingly terrible - a must-miss! (Eye Of The Beholder (DVD))

Member Name: pineroad

Product:	Eye Of The Beholder (DVD)
Date:	27/07/00 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ashley Judd

Disadvantages: A turkey of a film

It took six months for Eye of the Beholder to reach Britain and with next to no publicity, that meant it could either be an intriguing curio or a film so bad, no-one could bother endorsing it.

Alas, it falls into the latter camp and anyone paying to see this turkey will feel very short changed by the time the closing credits roll.

Australian writer/director Stephan Elliott made a big impact in the early Nineties with his smash hit Priscilla Queen of the Desert and the thought of him turning his hand from gay road movie to serial killer thriller was not an altogether horrific prospect.

The fact that it also starred Ewan McGregor and the far from hideous Ashley Judd was also a good sign.

However, Patrick Bergin hasn't made a decent film in years and his presence does set a few alarm bells ringing.

McGregor plays 'Eye', a British secret service agent who wears a knackered old anorak tied up with tape and grime.

While spying on the enigmatic Joanna (Judd), he is naturally shocked when she murders her lover and then takes off with him in hot pursuit.

Eye is a solitary figure haunted by the presence of his daughter who is off living with his estranged wife.

A nice idea which was also done in Edge of Darkness. But whereas that TV classic made the plot device work to its advantage, this merely acts as a sounding board for our slightly unhinged protagonist.

As soon as Eye starts chasing Joanna, the little girl vanishes. Is he cured? We don't really know. And it seems neither does the director.

With smatterings of Vertigo and Rear Window, this wannabe Hitchcock thriller features obvious references to those movies and for the first half hour, you forgive the homages.

However, it soon becomes apparent that there's no real story here. Just a series of varying US locations as Eye chases Judd from state to state, accruing a series of snow globes. A clever device f
or telling us where we are, just in case we don't recognise the New York skyline or the rollercoaster hills of San Francisco.

As with most Hollywood movies these days, the one commodity sorely lacking is suspense. The gadgets and cast may look good but without some form of gravity, the whole thing flies away like a kite in a strong breeze. Too much time is spent travelling from A to B without any real reason. There's not much point taking a journey if you're going nowhere, unless you like the scenery.

This is not a travelog. It's meant to be letting you in on precious bits of information as the mystery unfolds. What it does is merely irritate like a stone in your shoe as you walk down a good looking road.

The film also features one of the poorest endings of any movie in recent history.

I guarantee you will leave the cinema feeling disappointed as EOB doesn't so much reach a satisfying conclusion as reach no conclusion at all.

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