Pursued (2004)

The greatest movie ever made..!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The acting is decent and Christian Slater is certainly right for the role of headhunter/stalker. He comes across as creepy and charming all at the same time. Unfortunately the plot got to the point where you were asking "This guy Ben is supposed to be smart? I wouldn't hire a guy that is this stupid." There were so many ways he could have extricated himself. Record almost any of their phone conversations, have other people listen to their conversations, get the security company involved earlier and turn the tables, tell anyone/everyone what the guy was doing to him, etc. His boss, with brain tumor, even told him early on how the headhunters will often stop at nothing to recruit-- including bugging and hidden video (including a video camera in pen). Why the heck would he take a pen from the psycho or let his daughter have a gift from him after being told that? And why did he not scan for bugs and video cameras in his home and office much earlier? It makes one wonder if anyone even read this script before they started shooting. With a few changes it could have been an OK movie-- instead of making me sad for having wasted time on it. Toward the end the use of the cool high tech tracking system was kind of too-little too-late and pointless-- but even at this point he could have sent the police to his house to catch him breaking in. Using the tracking system would have made more sense earlier on. So bottom line: not worth your time. Feel sorry for the cast because there is no way they could have saved this picture with such a badly written plot.

Ever since Heathers, made when Christian Slater was a bubblegum pop idol, he's specialized in quirky roles. They can be quirky psychotic like Heathers or quirky lovable as Kuffs. In Pursued Slater falls firmly on the psychotic side. Parts like these allow actors to pull out all the stops and Slater does it with gusto. He's on some kind of anti-psychotic drugs and I'd hate to see him when he's not taking the meds. He's a corporate recruiter who gets hired by companies to find the best executives. Sometimes they're an easy sell and sometimes not. But one thing though, Slater never takes no for an answer.His latest project Gil Bellows has a stubborn streak of loyalty to the company he works for and its president Michael Clarke Duncan. He does not believe that Slater has resorted to murder in the past to obtain his objective. He then gets good and sufficient reason to believe it. Slater does not like to lose at anything, he sees corporate head hunting as a blood sport and wants his trophy every time.If you're a fan of Christian Slater this film should not be missed. Director Kristoffer Tabori had a loose rein on Slater throughout this production and he ran with it.It's overacting to the max, but the part calls for it.

I enjoyed the movie, but with some reservations. I've been a Slater fan for years and liked this role for him. My problem with this is the way the main characters (Gil Bellows) had such difficulty in coming to grips with industrial sabotage. This guy is a computer genius and works in electronics but it took almost half the movie to realize that he was bugged. This even after he was given warnings by a corporate surveillance expert. The way he let his wife and child interact with Slater's character was totally out of this world. Maybe I speak only for myself but if someone harasses me and mine, I'm not cordial and I will not allow my family to associate with them either. That's not anti-social, it's logical to protect their own family. The action was OK if anti-climatic and was very predictable. One area I didn't understand was the first CEO that was introduced and the murder of his wife. He was so worried about being arrested that he didn't seem irritated at Slater over the murder. Is this normal behavior or not? It kinda sets the setting for the whole movie. I did like what he told the lead when he confronted him, "sign with him or kill him." I guess it worked out that way. Overall not a bad movie.

I am going to disagree with every other person who seems to have commented on this film. The worst thing about it is Christian Slater, who plays what I like to think of as a "Garden Variety Hollywood Psycho". Think Bettlejuice with a better complexion in an Armani suit or Hannibal Lecter on a diet of espresso rather than Fava beans. Slater's character Vincent chews the scenery shamelessly and seems to have the omniscient information that these psychos always seem to have. I do agree that Gil Bellows is largely an empty cipher in the center of the movie, he's basically playing the same troubled weak guy he played in Ally McBeal. The only time he comes to life is when he's attacking Slater's character.As Bellow's wife Estella Warren does her usual decent job, playing a woman confused by her husband's behavior, although the smart woman she seems to be would have seen through Vincent in about 5 minutes. She also needs to work on that anxious look she perfected in Planet of the Apes and uses as her predominant expression throughout most of this film. Still this movie does establish one thing. If Angelina Jolie has the finest lower lip in Hollywood, Estella warren definitely has the mosy sensuous upper lip. There is one scene where Warren comforts her PlanetOTA co-star Michael Clark Duncan, who plays, of all things, a venture capitalist.Unfortunately all this scene did for me was to think what a great General Thade (another classic Hollywood Psycho) Christian Slater could have been.The continuity in this film seems odd. Key scenes of exposition, especially between the husband and wife, are missing. The wife appears to change her opinions about her husband and what is going on without ever having a scene where she realizes that Vincent is dangerous and her husband isn't crazy. There are also scenes of high tension with no payoffs. I especially would have liked a scene that wraps up how the situation with Vincent was resolved and whether the crooked cop got taken down. All we get is Vincent dies and Billy, er Benji's company becomes a success with no explanation how or why. I suspect that the filmmakers were trying to make the standard 90 minute film and cut out too much in their effort to meet this demand.To conclude, if you like Hollywood Psychos and their near invincibility you will probably enjoy this film. If on the other hand you are bothered by bad editing and odd inexplicable motivations on the part of major characters you should probably save your money. On the other hand this is still a better movie than Stra Wars I or the Fantastic 4.