TV Review The Lost Wife of Robert Durst

The Lost Wife of Robert Durst (2017) 

Directed by Yves Simoneaux

Written by Bettina Gilois, Matt Birkbeck

Starring Jesse Hutch, Katherine McPhee, Daniel Gillies

Release Date November 4th, 2017 

The Lifetime movie has become synonymous with low-budget, high-camp, gossipy trash. Though the network has worked to try and buy back some respectability with more ambitious, true-life stories and slightly bigger budgets, that gossipy, trashy style of storytelling remains the network’s bread and butter. I sound like I am complaining, and I probably should be, but the fact is, the gossipy, high-camp trash that is The Lost Wife of Robert Durst is insanely watchable; the definition of a pleasure to feel guilty about.

Katherine McPhee stars in The Lost Wife of Robert Durst as Kathie, the first wife of the scion of New York Real Estate moguls Robert Durst (Daniel Gillies – The Vampire Diaries and The Originals) of the New York City Dursts. Kathie met Robert, or Bobby, in 1971 when she took an apartment in a building Robert’s family owned and where he collected the monthly rent in person. The two literally bumped into each other in the hall and were soon inseparable.

What appealed to Kathie about Robert is anyone’s guess. Robert is twitchy, sweaty, and awkward in a way that isn’t charming. He has a square jaw, a full head of hair, and lots of money, but I won’t impugn the dead by saying the appeal was shallow. The film does nothing to make Robert Durst seem like a normal human being, so we really have no good answer to why someone as seemingly intelligent as Kathie is portrayed would be interested in such a weaselly dude.

The film cuts back and forth in time beginning with the fateful day in February of 1982 when an obviously distressed Durst reported his wife missing. We then cut back to Kathie moving into a nice apartment and getting settled before meeting Durst and seemingly hopping aboard the first available man; sorry to the memory of Kathie, but if the IRL Robert Durst is this off-putting, which, judging by The Jinx, he probably is, we have no Earthly idea what would cause Kathie to marry Robert.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal. 

Movie Review: Captivity

Captivity (2007)

Directed by Roland Joffe 

Written by Larry Cohen 

Starring Elisha Cuthbert, Daniel Gillies, Laz Alonzo 

Release Date July 13th, 2007

Published July 13th, 2007

Director Roland Joffe made a splashy Hollywood debut with back to back Best Director Oscar nominations for 1984's The Killing Fields and 1986's The Mission. From there his career has been a precipitous freefall. He followed up The Mission with 1989's bloated cold war drama Fat Man and Little Boy and 1992's dull Patrick Swayze drama City of Joy.

Then Joffe really hit the skids. In 1996 Joffe teamed with then hot star Demi Moore for a remake of The Scarlett Letter that is now a legendary debacle. Joffe has worked only one other time in the past decade, a forgettable period piece called Vatel, and he returns to the big screen with yet another disastrous turn. His latest, Captivity , is an ugly little enterprise in brainless brutality.

Elisha Cuthbert stars in Captivity as Jenifer, a supermodel/actress who, as luck would have it for our central serial killer, travels the streets of New York with no bodyguard or boyfriend. Luckier still, she goes to a hot nightclub where she has no friends, acquaintances or hangers on of any kind, leaving her wide open to be drugged and carried off by some skeevy loser.

When Jenifer awakens, she finds herself locked in a cell where she will be repeatedly drugged and tortured. Thankfully, there is another captive next door, Gary (Daniel Gillies), who helps keep Jenifer sane and plan a way out of this situation. Along the way Jenifer and Gary fall for each other and more than just a little captive romance gets going, even as the two are tortured in tandem.

Rumor has it that director Roland Joffe crafted a more cerebral take on this material, less gore, more psychology. It is alleged that After Dark Films honcho Courtney Solomon rejected that cut and ordered re-shoots that eventually churned out this mind numbingly brutal exercise in torture porn ugliness. Whether that story is true or not, it's hard not to notice how some of the more disturbing, violent or just plain disgusting scenes in Captivity feel tacked on.

As this dopey plot unfolds, with one confoudingly ludicrous scene after another, it nearly becomes Ed Wood-ian in its overall ineptitude with director Roland Joffe not in the Ed Wood role but more like the sad, tragic, aged Bela Lugosi. Blissfully unaware of how awful the project is, Joffe plunges ahead with all the professionalism he can muster and does manage to keep the film looking as if it were directed with some talent.

However, the blundering storyline and ridiculous turns of plot undermine any attempt by Mr. Joffe to make Captivity anything more than an exercise in numbing sub-genre histrionics.

So what is the entertainment value of Captivity? Are we frightened? Not really, the flaws in the films logic remove much of any suspense. Are we disgusted? Yeah sure, but do you find that bubbling in your stomach as a character is force fed a human remains smoothie, entertaining? I don't. And so we are left with ogling star Elisha Cuthbert, something one could do in the privacy of their own home with an FHM Magazine and a far more satisfying result.

A quick disclaimer for you PETA members out there. There is a scene with a dog in Captivity that will have you rushing to the door to get a ticket refund. Save yourself the trouble of watching the scene, take my word for it, just start protesting now.

Captivity is really faux torture porn horror pic. The film is padded with extra gore and some disturbing images in the marketing to glom off the supposed cool of films like Hostel or Wolf Creek. In reality, Captivity is a bad movie tagged with extra violence and viscera as a marketing technique. Maybe that story about the reshoots is true but the logic was likely that Captivity is so bad as a psychological horror film that gory was the only way to give the film a pulse.

Whatever the reasoning, it didn't help. Gore or no gore, Captivity is simply a bad movie.