Director: Rob Cohen
Writer: Barbara Curry
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, Kristin Chenoweth
Plot: A woman, separated from her unfaithful husband, falls for a younger man who has moved in next door, but their torrid affair soon takes a dangerous turn.
Running Time: 91 Minutes
Rotten Tomatoes Score: Critics 10% Audience 33%
Why I Watched It: For whatever reason I’m on a streak of watching bad movies or at least movies the critics hated, not sure why.
Random Thoughts: The sexual thriller genre is pretty well dead for whatever reason, sure we get some straight to video but back in the 90′s it was a strong sub-genre and don’t forget that’s pretty much Fatal Attraction was and Basic Instinct but Hollywood has really lost the art of being sexual and steamy Hollywood is more comfortable with serial killers than sex. Here’s the thing The Boy Next Door is rated R on IMDB and it’s pretty tame and not steamy at all.
What I liked: Well this is tough go look at that Critics % 10 so it tells you something. Sadly there’s nothing I really liked except the cheese factor and the unintentional comedy and I can’t give the film credit for that cause they weren’t going for it. I will say it does fail at just about everything it tries. I try to be positive but I’m pulling at straws here.
What I didn’t like: This could have been a decent bad/good thriller but we needed it to either be smarter or go over the top and the film does neither. Let’s start with the casting Ryan Guzman is playing someone in high school the dude is 30 years old, now let’s move to Jennifer Lopez, when I describe the character as a high school English teacher who has a teenage son, who has a cheating husband, has one friend and who might has her friend says needs to get laid, does Jennifer Lopez jump to you as someone who would be good casting, not she is not. Jennifer Lopez is limited as an actress but she’s attractive and has charisma and that’s it. This film fails at giving her something she could do that she is good at. She has no chemistry with The Boy Next Door or her cheating husband.
The major flaw with this film is that it’s boring, really boring and man it drags at only 91 minutes, this is just lazy storytelling, honestly this embarrasses cliches. The story honestly is just the plot, they do nothing with it, it turns Fatal Attraction on us on a dime, just flick a switch, no build up at all, Boy Next Door goes nuts real quick and it’s not believable, I think they would have been smart to have the affair go on and let Lopez’s character see something was up. The ending is beyond bad and really if the film embraced the cheese and had fun with it then maybe the film good have been a guilty pleasure. Now I will say this, the critics killed it and really it’s not super bad it’s just got made for video quality that happened to be released on the big screen and that meant critics had to review it.
Final Thoughts: It’s a bad bad movie, I didn’t hate it and really it’s a fun movie to make fun of while you’re watching. The need to embrace the cheese factor it didn’t to be more fun.
Rating: 2/10
