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Obsessed
What it's about:
Derek Charles (Idris Elba) is a hard working man, employed as an asset manager in a private company. He is very happy with his beautiful wife, Sharon (Beyoncé Knowles), and their son. At the office, Derek is assigned a new assistant named Lisa (Ali Larter) who is both attractive and smart, and sparks fly between the two. However, Lisa wants more than a casual fling and is willing to risk everything to get what she wants.
What we thought:
If there's one reason to see this movie, it's to see Beyoncé open a can of whup-ass on Ali Larter.
Idris Elba plays Derek, the mac daddy. He is charming, powerful, just the right amount of sexy and the best thing about Obsessed. If the plot wasn't as lame and derivative as it is, he'd have been an impressive leading man.
Jerry O'Connell (Ben) plays Derek's colleague and friend, and is sadly under-used. He seems to wander in and out of scenes aimlessly. His 'performance' as such could be mistaken for really bad outtakes from The Office.
However, Larter (who kicks butt on our TV screens as one of many Heroes) and Beyoncé (who can dance holes into a stage) get into a pretty impressive B-grade bitch fight. Neither of them are particularly good at acting, but Larter makes a convincing villain. The good news is that B doesn't play a singer in this role, and has expanded into the more challenging role of mother and scorned wife. But the drama she brings is so tacky and over-the-top, you end up wishing she'd spontaneously break into song to wake the bored audience up.
Obsessed has shamelessly used every thriller cliché known to man in the climactic fight scene. Yes, they run up the stairs. Yes, there is a well-positioned glass coffee table otherwise known as "the death trap". Yes, there's the balcony prop, the chandelier, and the freakishly strong skinny woman.
Even the dialogue is as predictable as the days of the week. You already know the ending and just about everything in-between. And while it's probably heading for a few Razzie Awards, it's such a shamelessly bad thriller that bizarrely, it works as a pretty entertaining comedy.
