is saving grace of ‘Window’
It’s nice having Johnny Depp around, isn’t it? Whether he’s playing a kooky B-movie director (“Ed Wood”), a waggish swashbuckler (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) or gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (“Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas”) the guy is eminently watchable. The producers of “Secret Window” are no doubt thankful to have Depp starring in their movie — he’s the best thing going in an otherwise run-of-the-mill suspense thriller.
The film is based on a short story by Stephen King about a successful author, Mort Rainey (Depp), who is in the midst of a messy divorce. After he catches his wife Amy (Maria Bello) in bed with her lover Ted (Timothy Hutton), a despondent Rainey stows himself away at his remote lakeside cabin in upstate New York and spends most of his time asleep on the sofa. His waking hours are devoted to wallowing in self-pity and, boy, does he ever have a bad case of writer’s block. To make matters worse, a mysterious stranger named Shooter (John Turturro) shows up on his doorstep claiming the author plagiarized one of his stories. Shooter wants justice, and he quickly — and in no uncertain terms — lets it be known he means business.
Frightened, depressed, manic and brimming with idiosyncrasies, Rainey is the sort of character Depp has thrived on throughout his career. As the stakes are raised in the game of cat and mouse with his nemesis, Depp rises to the occasion — affording us an all-access pass to see a life spiraling out of control. Unfortunately, the rest of the cast — and the story, for that matter — can’t keep up. Turturro gives it his all, but he’s badly miscast in a role that calls for someone far more sinister. Bello, who was so fantastic in “The Cooler,” doesn’t have a whole lot to work with here and it shows. Charles S. Dutton, playing a cop hired by Rainey for protection, isn’t around long enough to register.
The narrative is engaging for the first two-thirds of the movie but unravels at the denouement, which seems to have been plucked from another film based on King’s work, “The Shining.” Problem is, “Secret Window” isn’t nearly as chilling as Stanley Kubrick’s classic. Apparently writer-director David Koepp, who has penned a long list of hits that includes “Jurassic Park,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Spiderman,” couldn’t decide whether to scare us or humor us. He does both at times, but his film would have been better served had he stuck with the scary stuff. (Rated PG-13 for violence/terror, sexual content and language.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 12, 2004. Read the original PDF.