The Lodger

This is not really a remake of the previous movies concerning a mysterious lodger at an Inn that might be Jack the Ripper. This takes place in modern Los Angeles, and concerns a couple that need to rent their guest house, and the Wife (Hope Davis) rents to a mysterious stranger that might be responsible for a series of Jack the Ripper type murders occurring. Alfred Molina is the detective in charge of the murders who brought a suspect to court 7 years earlier, who was then executed for similar murders, but now the murders appear to be exactly the same as the executed guy. In fact, as the investigation goes on, the killer is following exactly the Jack the Ripper killings. This is a good one, the whole premise is very interesting, especially to fans of Jack the Ripper movies. Simon Baker plays the mysterious lodger, but then again, nobody has seen him except the Wife, and when an investigation takes place, developments dictate, everything is not as it suggests. Good mystery, check this one out.

This I have to admit is a very B-movie. If it were not for the actors in it I wouldn't even call it a C-movie. However the storyline is very engaging. I wouldn't dare compare it to any other movie however and most of the critics have already slammed it because "Hitchcock's version was better" (although this movie has been made by several others as well). The director has done a fairly good job with the budget he has and has made some very good decisions at least in casting the actors in their roles. The movie is mostly a "copycat" film, but the concepts are still the same. Obviously it is not possible to follow the storyline of "jack the ripper has left England and is now in the United States" as in the original Lodger story because it is now 2009, which in the end doesn't really help or hurt the film at all. It was also nice to see Rebecca Pidgeon in a film again although her character is mostly just thrown in to "tie" the ending together in a "Psycho-esque" kind of way. Donal Logue seems like the typical husband who doesn't SEEM to understand his wife, played by Hope Davis, who may or may not be imagining things. And finally Alfred Molina is basically cast as himself, stubborn, difficult, and determined. Everyone is a suspect and Ondaatje does a very good job keeping the pace while switching seamlessly between the detectives investigating and the Bunting residence where "The Lodger" is. However, whether or not you feel "cheated" by the end of the film is up to you. I however was not very surprised by the modern day twists that are thrown at the audience in the end. Definitely worth seeing in the theater if you can.

source: The Lodger

***SPOILERS*** Modernized version of Marie Lowndes' 1913 novel about the infamous "Jack the Ripper" who terrorized the Whitechaple-Kensington sections of London in the late summer and early fall of 1888 resulting in the brutal murders of at least 6 women. In this updated version of the famous "Jack the Ripper", who was never caught, saga the crimes committed by a copy cat of his are in West L.A with L.A homicide detective Chandler Manning, Alfred Molina, trying to track down and, if at all possible, apprehend the elusive psycho. That's before he disappears forever only to resurface some ten years later to continue his what's by now 120 year murder spree. It was in fact Det. Manning who apprehended a "Jack the Ripper" like killer seven years earlier, Emilio Rodriguez, who ended up being executed for the murder of two L.A prostitutes just day's before the latest "Jack the Ripper" murders were committed! It soon becomes evident that the latest killings were that of the person who framed Rodriguez seven years ago thus having him, an innocent man, sent to the San Quentin death house! With Det. Manning now more determined then ever to catch this new "Jack the Ripper" copy cat killer he becomes absorbed in what the original "Jack the Ripper" did back in London in the fall of 1888! That to the point where he loses control of his very shaky marriage with his now mentally ill wife, Margaret, who had a complete mental breakdown because of his obsession with the Emilio Rodriguez case! The "Lodger" comes on the scene in the person of the mysterious so-called free-lance writer Malcolm, Simon Baker, who rents an apartment from the very mentally unstable, were never told just what her problems are, Ellen Bunting, Hope Davis. Mrs Bunting starts to get very friendly with the devilishly handsome, especially after she saw him with his shirt off, Malcolm in that her old man, husband, Joe, Donal Logue, is never around to pay ant attention to her. In that Joe works the night shift, and sleeps in the daytime, at a wear-house in downtown L.A. It's that strange relationship with the even more strange Malcolm that has Joe who's never allowed to see his new tenant, in order not to disturb him in his "work", to sense that something isn't quite right and starts to investigate. Extremely complicated murder mystery that has both Det. Manning and his rookie partner Det. Street Wilkerson, Shane West, going around in circles trying to catch the illusive killer. As things are soon to turn out the killer is in fact copying not only "Jack the Rippers" cut im' up tactics but also his victims, prostitutes, and even the geography of the landscape, the Whitechaple-Kensington of London, where he committed his crimes! That the area of West L.A fits perfectly! ***SPOILERS*** The film "The Lodger" is actually more of a plea against the death penalty then anything else. Were shown that an innocent man was sent to his death for a crime that he didn't commit that had the real killer go free to continue to kill again. That with the police a bit shy in apprehending him in order not to reveal that they screwed up in the first place in letting the killer, by executing someone else's in his place, get off not only Scot-Free but to be able to continue killing! ***MAJOR SPOILER*** There's's also a very very clever plot twist put into the film that keeps you, as well as the police, off balance to who the real "Jack the Ripper" killer really is until the very end of the movie. And that has to be explained to the audience and police by police profiler Dr. Jessica Westmin played by Rebecca Pidgon. It's Mrs. Pidgon who had previous as well as first hand experience in her dealing with psycho killers from her experience of being the jilted wife of that crazed and homicidal lunatic "Edmond" in the 2005 psycho-thriller of the same name.

Decent plot and good cast, on paper, totally negated by incompetent directing. Camera angles are all over the place, suspense music is overdone, leaving no suspense. Cast is made to look like a bunch of amateurs. Ends up looking like your usual cliched slasher-thriller.

This movie fits into my category of a movie that I felt compelled to continue watching but ultimately ended up being disappointing. That does not mean I will withhold a recommendation from the film, however. I did not read very much about "The Lodger" before watching it. I was hoping that this would add an air of suspense to my viewing. It did, but it is possible it may have also led me to criticize it more harshly than I would have if I had known more about the plot. My first problem with the movie came very early on. Detective Manning gets a letter from evidence which is very obviously a facsimile of the "Dear Boss" letter from the Jack the Ripper investigations. This letter was the first of three letters that have been studied along with the Ripper case. "Dear Boss" was the first letter that mentioned the name "Jack the Ripper" and since it mentioned he would clip the next victim's ear and the next victim was found missing an earlobe, it was considered evidence. I am a bit of a Ripperologist, but I am sure that you do not have to be such to recognize this letter. In this movie, however, two more murders have to take place before Jack the Ripper is even mentioned. This movie is way too packed with red herrings. It leads you down a path believing that a lady in the movie is psychotic and imagining that she has a lodger living with her who may be committing the murders. It introduces a tense family situation with Molina's character that adds suspicion. There is a whole situation about the death penalty that is meant to lead you to believe the murders were meant to cause the wrong man to be executed to prohibit the death penalty. There are plenty more I am not going to mention. What I enjoyed most is that this movie was paced perfectly. Even though there were several things that I did not like, I kept watching it because I was drawn in and I wanted the movie to reveal to me what was really going on. Many times when I get aggravated with a movie, I will just look up spoilers to save me the time of watching the whole thing. I did not want to do that with this movie though. However, after the movie ended, I wished that I had looked up the spoilers. The ending made very little sense. The police had a psychological profile that obviously had been written up by someone who did not even have their associates of arts in psychology. All of the things in the movie that were supposed to arouse suspicion were pointless, and the ending became simply as mundane as possible. In writing suspense movies, there are two plot lines that have been overused in recent years and should be abandoned. The first plot line is that the entire thing was set up by one of the main characters who has a dissociative identity. It worked once or twice, but shouldn't be used anymore. The second plot is the one in which you have an obvious scenario that the viewer is pulled away from for a much more bizarre plot. Once the viewer gets involved in the alternate possibilities, at the end of the movie it is revealed that the obvious scenario was real and everything else was there simply so you wouldn't suspect it. It's a disease of writers thinking they are utilizing Occam's Razor to make a story simple, but more fascinating. It doesn't work and it insults the viewer and wastes the viewer's time. T This movie is of the second plot line and for this reason I recommend that you skip it and watch something else.

The Lodger (2009) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Yet another remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1927 film but this one is set in current day Los Angeles where a maniac is killing hookers. While a detective (Alfred Molina) tries to solve the case, an unhappily married woman (Hope Davis) rents her guest house to a mysterious writer (Simon Baker). One could argue that we really didn't need yet another version of this story but I think they did enough interesting things here to make this version worth watching. I think it falls well short of the 1927 and 1944 versions but I did like a few of the changes they did here. Setting the story in current times allows the filmmakers to use stuff like DNA and other scientific things to try to solve the cases. It also helps that the filmmakers are able to use the Jack the Ripper sideline as someone trying to copy his murders. I will say that the final ten minutes of the movie are without question the best thing in the film because it offers up a couple very nice twists that actually work. I'm certainly not going to give them away but I enjoyed them very much. The performances are also another major plus as Molina is excellent as the detective obsessed with solving the case. Shane West is good as his partner and Philip Baker Hall is also strong as the police chief. Rachel Leigh Cook plays the detective's daughter in a small role. Both Davis and Baker are also good in their portion of the story. I think some of the attempted style is a bit overdone and especially the scenes showing the L.A. freeways. I think less would have been a bit more in regards to the style thrown in by the director. Still, fans of the story will probably want to check this one out and while it's not a complete success it's at least good enough to be worth watching.

As a neo-noir, The Lodger is pretty familiar material, but If I'll remember it for anything, (and that's a big 'if') it would be the body count, which is among the highest of anything I've seen in this genre. The story concerns an LAPD detective in search of a killer recreating JAck the Ripper's legacy. I'll give the Lodger a bit of credit for its ability to keep you guessing, but that's just about all that the film is committed to doing. The story is shallow, and much of the dialogue sounds recycled. The acting isn't very good either, and screen time which should have been spent on more intellectual character interaction is wasted on unnecessary montages of time-lapse photography which looks like something from television. Overall, the movie is watchable, but it could've amounted to more.

Unfortunately THE LODGER is one of those films which loses me from the outset thanks to the all-too-glossy "look" and feel. Given the nature of the subject matter this should be a production crying out for grim and gritty styling, but instead this has a slick sheen of the kind seen in US TV shows like CSI. In addiction, the story is nothing to write home about, despite the promise inherent in the premise. It's an erstwhile remake of the silent Hitchcock movie of the same name, presented in the modern day, with two seemingly separate plot strands: weary detectives are tracking a modern day Jack the Ripper, while a houseowner gets to grips with her mysterious new tenant. Sadly, the detective plot is superficial and largely uninteresting, purely because it's so hackneyed; even a solid actor like Alfred Molina can do little with the material, which I found boring more than anything else. Meanwhile, the 'tenant' plot is equally lame, having been done to death in many a 1990s-era psycho-thriller, and the characters are so underwritten as to be cardboard. Lame attempts to build mystery are all too familiar and the double-twist ending is predictable in the extreme. Sadly, there are all too many of these middle-of-the-road thrillers churned out by Hollywood; they contain zero memorable material yet at the same time aren't bad enough to stay in the memory for the wrong reasons. They're just insipid and entirely forgettable.

Updated and rethought story of the strange lodger in a home that may or may not be Jack the Ripper. However in this new version the question is the nice man, Simon Baker, renting a room from Hope Davis responsible for the Jack the Ripper like killing in Los Angeles . Alfred Molina is the cop on the trail of the killer. A very well acted film, with everyone hitting the right notes for their parts. The film really isn't a strict retelling of the story, rather it uses bits of the original to launch off in new directions, certainly Hope Davis's damaged landlord never came from Victorian London. Unfortunately the film collapses thanks to two errors in judgment. The first is the script is too much into the realm of cliché when it comes to Molina's story arc. He's the good zealous cop who ends up becoming a scapegoat for the failures of the rest of the police. The material isn't bad, but for a film that is so desperately trying to break the mold of a well worn story that to have him be the only one who understands what's going on and that he gets blamed like almost every other cop drama is too much to ask. It brings everything down. The other problem with the film is that the director is a bit too gimmick happy. Take for example the early sequence where Hope Davis is eating breakfast and the TV is on and you get fancy camera angles through her glass or an increase in volume when the work knife is heard on TV. You also have fast motion and slow motion sequences and shots designed to look cool. The best tricks are the ones we never see, unfortunately with this film every one is revealed as if with a neon sign and fireworks. I spent more time watching the director attempt to be clever then I was watching the police try to figure out who the killer was. This is a film with very good part that are hurt by some very bad ones. Worth a look but only if you don't pay for it.