Hey gang, Valkor here. And we’re back after a much needed break (and believe me it was truly needed) and to keep things rolling here at TOV. And trust me I’ve got something special in store. For now though we’re gonna dive right into MediaView with a look at a new film featuring Patrick Wilson (Insidious) and Katherine Heigl (One for the Money). It’s “Home Sweet Hell” and it’s pretty twisted with a few chuckles tossed in. Some spoilers ahead.
Home Sweet Hell is a dark comedy that follows the exploits of Don Champagne (Wilson); by day he runs a furniture business. But at night he's wrapped in the "perfect home" - white picket fence, two kids, and a big beautiful house. Yet he’s pretty much yes ma’aming and giving into the demands of his commanding, dominering wife Mona (Heigl); She even goes so far as to control when and what time they have sex, which isn’t going over so well with Don. How thirsty is this cat? Enter new hire Dusty (Jordana Brewster) and the two immediately kick off a hot, torrid, steamy and lusty affair. Unfortunately for Don, Dusty reveals she’s pregnant, which most definitely won't go over with Mona. As it turns out, Dusty is working with a bunch of backwater scrubs to extort money from Don or else they’ll tell his wife and it’ll blow up in his face. Don decides to tell Mona anyway and the only way she sees them getting out of this predicament is to kill Dusty. And that's when things begin to spiral out of control as not only does Don have to contend with his anxiety of the situation, there’s the death of Dusty, the true extortionist, a cop hot on the trail and a wife with a satiation of death that just won’t quit. How will it all end? It’s pretty much how I would have expected. Is it a good thing or bad? Well I won’t reveal it but we’ll delve into that when we enter the breakdown.
I normally watch a film twice, especially if I receive a screener copy – once just to watch it and the second for the review. With “Home Sweet Hell”, I not only watched it twice but also a few scenes just to be sure I understood what was going on. And after watching it... this film could have gone a number of ways than what was finally done with it. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The Good:
Home Sweet Hell isn’t a terrible film, I’ve definitely seen better in the genre. And yet I found myself chuckling at the beginning, so it has some comedic teeth to it. As the story grew darker and less comedic, I stuck it out until that weird ending. Needless to say the film is watchable. The acting is pretty sweet and Katherine Heigl does devious so well and even Patrick Wilson scores some cool points as pussy whipped Don. After that there really isn’t all that much to say except…
The Bad:
…except in the end, the film isn’t all that great. What ultimately kills it, is that it isn’t sure what kind of story it's trying to tell; is it a versus between Mona and Don? Is it a twisted love triangle? Is it Mona’s appreciation to killing? I simply don’t get it. At first I thought it was gonna be something like “War of the Roses”, but nothing along those lines ever happen. And then to unnecessarily add to the mix is the extortion plot involving the thugs, who don’t seem to fit into the story at all! If they were cut from the story, you’d never miss them and it just seems to add minutes to the film that could have been spent elsewhere. Or if they had to be there, then Mona should have dispatched them sooner rather than later in the film. Then there’s the ending – I didn’t care for it. What happens between Mona and Don I could see happening (though I expected more conflict between the two), but what ultimately “might” have happened to Don… just meh.
The Ugly:
N/A
Home Sweet Hell gets a limited release on March 10th, but you can watch now on digital formats like Amazon. It’s cool watching Katherine Heigl be a seductive, manipulative bitch, but I wasn’t pleased with the ends results and you might not as well. And out of TOV 5 stars, I’m giving Home Sweet Hell a 1.5.
