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DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE Send This Review to a Friend
The basic idea of "Domestic Disturbance" is better than the not-very-credible melodramatics to which the thriller builds. John Travolta plays Frank, a nice-guy, divorced father. His young son Danny (Matt O'Leary) is having problems. He resents the divorce. He resents Rick, the new man (Vince Vaughn) his mother marries and when she becomes pregnant, he doesn't like that either.
Danny's stepfather is a charismatic hotshot, a relatively new businessman in town. But is he who he seems? What's his past? At the wedding, attended by both Danny and his dad, Steve Buscemi as the mysterious Ray makes an appearance, and if you know Buscemi, he just has to stare and an ominous note is introduced. He and Rick have a strange connection.
How Danny finds out that Rick is a menace triggers the escalating melodrama and the danger to him, to his father and ultimately to his unsuspecting mother. Danny has a solid eye-witness story to tell. Police officer (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) doesn't believe him. Only Danny's dad has faith that he is telling the truth.
This is the sort of thriller in which Frank must go into action and a fight to the death is a given. The physical battle that ensues according to formula stretches credibility, and in the end, "Domestic Disturbance" emerges as no more than run-of-the-mill. Harold Becker directed from a screenplay by Lewis Colick. A Paramount Pictures release.
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