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THE LODGER Send This Review to a Friend
Did we need another “The Lodger?” Successful films of the past are better left alone. Hitchcock did a version in 1927, and many are fond of the 1944 version. The Jack the Ripper case has tempted other spin-offs and now comes a new, heavy-handed tale of slaughtering hookers, this time with a Los Angeles setting. Almost any story of killings may hold one’s interest, but apart from that, Director David Ondaatje has made a film steeped in banality.
He wrote the screenplay adaptation from Marie Belloc Lowndes’ 1913 novel, the source of other efforts. He shows as much gore as need be without going overboard, but concentrates on the characters. Alfred Molina plays Chandler Manning, a detective who runs afoul of his superiors as he searches for the killer on the loose.
Hope Davis has a fidgety role as Ellen, an obsessed housewife who becomes enamored of the mysterious stranger Malcolm (Simon Baker), who rents a room at the home of Ellen and her boorish husband Joe (Donal Logue). Manning, plagued by personal domestic problems, is aided by his rookie sidekick Wilkenson (Shane West) in the quest to unravel the string of brutal murders.
The gimmick: The killer is following a pattern of the notorious Jack the Ripper crimes.
The rush to the climax is a ridiculous hodgepodge, with little that’s convincing either with respect to the plot or the hammy performances. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.
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