Hey gang, Valkor here. When going through my video pile, lately I’ve chosen not to go at it blindly and actually pick and choose which vid gets to the TOV chopping block. I’ve only done this because I wanna make sure I’m not reviewing films from “certain companies” (i.e. Tomcat Films). So when it came down to this next film – 4Closed starring Marlee Matlin, I could either review because it has Marlee in it (and I love me some Marlee) or toss it because… well it’s from The Asylum bunch. I went with Marley, and by the end of it all, I could have gone in either direction.
4Closed centers on the Turner family – mom Ashley (Matlin), husband and former alcoholic Jake (James Denton) and their daughter Christine (Alex Frnka); the family is in the market for a new home and sure enough one opens up where the price is just too good to be true – it's foreclosure home. Unfortunately for the family, the former tenant and son of the previous owner, Forrest Hayes (Jamie Kennedy), still resides in the house. And he’ll taze anyone and everyone to death should they try to stake his claim. Eventually officials drag him out, but he’s not going down without a fight. He's set up to watch on the family; he has remote cameras placed throughout the house to keep close eye on the Turners, sneaks into their home, steals their credit cards and maxes them out, and even goes so far as to befriend Christine, pretending to be one of her schoolmates. But it all comes to a head when he’s able to turn the women against husband/father Jake, get him tossed in jail, kidnaps Christine and finally he’ll use her as leverage to get his home back. But will he?
Of course not, but that doesn’t matter; the big question is, will you want to tune in? Not just because it’s an Asylum film, but Marlee Matlin… she isn’t easy on the ears… but ever so easy on the eyes. Yea, I love me some Marlee Matlin and I don’t care about her voice (it’s due to her ailment – she’s deaf if no one knows this). It’s just… Asylum…
The Good:
4Closed is a simple, straightforward home invasion thriller that runs 90 minutes easy; I’ve only got a few positives for the film. First, I thought the acting was pretty decent, again I love me some Marlee and she performs well given her disability. Thankfully there are enough hands on deck to lend their talens with sign language, so that helps. Next, Paul Sorvino makes an appearance and if you want me to like a film even a little bit, just toss in Sorvino and I’m all but sold. The man is a legend and while the film isn’t legendary, he does make the most of it. Finally, Jamie Kennedy really surprised my; while I thought his character was lame, he does play the part well and if it wasn’t for the fact that I read the box before hand, I wouldn’t have recognized him. After all that we have…
The Bad:
The movie sucked! There’s literally little to no tension, even less thrills and the characters are made to do dumb stuff that defy any logic. Case in point, Ashley is out shopping with Christine and that’s when they learn their credit cards have been maxed out. When they return home, Ashley checks their bank statements to discover that they literally have no money – none! Someone has spent it all on online gambling. So of course they accuse the husband, whom throughout the story is only known for being a drunkard previously - nothing about gambling. So the family attacks him about the lost loot. Alcoholism and gambling addiction don’t always go hand in hand and if that were the case with the Jake's character, then that should have been established earlier in the film, like when they drop that he’s a recovering alcoholic. And on top of that, this family don't really show panic when it comes to the loss of their life's savings. I mean I would flip my shit had all my money suddenly vanished. These guys just point fingers and call it a day. Now I called Jamie Kennedy’s character lame, even though I think he performed well, and I say this with good reason – the dude’s weapon of choice is a taser. A TASER! He actually kills people with a taser! But Val, he has some techy skills, maybe it’s a souped up taser? No! It’s a dumb weapon and I wasn’t buying it. He also stalks the family while they sleep, stalks the daughter online, but doesn’t do them much harm – it’s more like a psychological thing right? Mess with their heads and turn them against one another. I guess if he stabbed everyone in their sleep, it probably wouldn't make much of a film.
The Ugly:
More like “The WTF?”, people are tased and never seen from again. What happened to the realtor in the beginning? Or Forrest's lawyer?
4Closed is available now on DVD, Blu-Ray and digital download; it’s a film that’s made for television, but even if you came across it while channel surfing, I’d still say watch anything else but this. There’s a small amount of good to it, but not enough that I’d want to recommend it. And out of TOV 5 stars, 4Closed is shutdown at 1.5.
