Method (2004)

Overrated and overhyped

Good idea lost in the noise

Excellent, smart action film.

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

For some reason this came up as a horror, I assure you it isn't.It tells the story of an actress returning to the spotlight for a new movie. She decides to live on set and really become the character, trouble is she takes it a tad far and before you know it events in the movie and events in real life start to merge.Starring the underrated Jeremy Sisto, the overrated Liz Hurley, British favorite John Barrowman and Heavy Rain (2010) star Sam Douglas it's not the cast that fails it.Though I appreciate what they were going for it simply doesn't work, at all. It's a messy poorly constructed not so thrilling thriller.Liz Hurley isn't a leading lady, she's a bit part character. One of those actresses who is pretty and looks the part on camera but doesn't have the acting chops and needs that weakness disguised with minimal lines.Badly written mess, simple as that.The Good:Interesting conceptSam DouglasThe Bad:Bad deliveryHurley isn't up to a lead roleThings I Learnt From This Movie:Sam Douglas needs more high profile jobs!

I admit I have watched many of Liz Hurley's movies. Almost every one of them has been a disappointment (she was actually very good as an addict in "Shameless" about 15 years ago).Hardcore Liz fans should stick to "Bedazzled" and "Passenger 57". Sisto has plenty of good work in circulation; I am amazed that he stooped to this tripe. The DVD set of the short lived TV show "Kidnapped" is worth the price of admission. It even has Carmen Ejogo, an Englishwoman who can act circles around Hurley.Do not waste your time on this poor excuse of a mystery. You'd be better off doing your income taxes. And at least the tax return has a conclusion worthy of being called that.

**SPOILERS** Brain-numbing film that's a movie within a movie with a number of confusing dream sequences added on as well. Beautiful but unstable motion picture actress Rebecca Fairbanks, Elizabeth Hurley,had been off the silver and big screen for three years. Rebecca is now attempting to make her big comeback in the movie role as turn of the century serial murderess Belle Gunness "known as the Black Widow of the the America Heartland" who killed 42 people in he early 1900's.Determined to make her comeback in the movies a smashing success Rebecca trying to get into the role, using method acting techniques, lives on the set where the film's being made in off all places Romania! the home of serial blood-sucker Darcula. Later she even becomes a murderous fanatic to get the "feel" and "state of mind" of what Belle Gunness was in at the time she murdered her victims.Pushed by her stage mother Mona, Carmen Du Sautoy, and having her co-star movie leading man and heart-throb Jake Fields,Jeremy Sisto,who had an affair with Rebecca three years ago that lead to her getting pregnant having an abortion. Jacks affair almost had him lose his wife Bethany, Hanna Yellard, because of it putting her, Rebecca, into such a deep depression over the whole mess that she hadn't made a movie since. Jake promising his wife Bethany who's there to make sure that he keeps he feeling, as well as pants on, for Rebecca in check and that he's only in love with her and no-one else. Bethany also wants to make sure that the hot and heavy work Jack's doing in his love scenes with Rebecca on the set are strictly professional and nothing more, ha ha ha. On the set Rebecca is more then in her role as the psycho-killer Belle Gunness by overdoing some of the murder scenes that's she's, using axes and knives, in. Rebecca's method acting techniques cause a number of actors in them with her to get medical treatment. There's also a number of people in and around the movie set that end up getting brutally murdered including both Rebbeca's mom and Jake's wife. Rebecca early in the movie drives out to a nearby town and picks up the local bar/saloon stud who also ends up dead with his throat slashed, was this her way of perfecting her acting as a serial murderess?With the exception of one of the actors in the movie, who Rebbeca smashed his head in with her new found method-acting skills, we don't know for sure if she's really responsible for all the murders off the set. Even when the movie is over her involvement in them is still up in the air and unexplained to the audience by the director and writer of the movie "Method". We also see the ghost of the real Belle Gunness, Loana Prvelescu, pop up every now and then in the movie giving Rebecca tips and advice in killing off her cast members in the film. "Method" looks as if it wasn't finished and just slapped together to get it released as if it's some kind of abstract art-film that only those who are really "hip" and "with it" could understand what it's all about. Even the scenes in the movie that Rebecca is staring in come across more convincing and realistic, then those that are supposed to be not before the camera, with Rebbecca and Jake having their affair rekindled after three years.In fact the love scenes that take place in the movie with Rebecca and Jake, playing their roles of Belle and her lover Ray, are far more hotter and convincing then the ones where their in bed and getting it on as Rebecca and Jake. The movie ends with a really out-of-this-world dream sequence that gives you the impression that Rebecca either kills herself or Jake or both with the encouragement of the ghost of the evil Belle Gunness. It's then that it switches to Rebecca playing Belle as if that scene was put in by mistake with the film editors not knowing that she was either dead or imprisoned for what happened in the previous scene!

In the real world people learn from mistakes. Players in Hollywood apparently feel no need to learn from mistakes. Case in point: METHOD. This beautifully shot but badly edited film is eerily similar to the beautifully shot but badly edited film THE WEIGHT OF WATER. Producers of these films obviously spent a lot of money on stars, sets, costumes, locations, equipment, etc. Directors of these films actually had good story to work with. Yet, in the end, both films don't work. In an attempt to dazzle the audience by interweaving the past with the present using slick editing techniques, the directors weaken the credibility of the story as well as confuse the audience. Regarding the story lines, both employ some type of mysterious karmic influence between people of the past and people in the present. Although this is probably a good plot device, it has to be believable, which it isn't in these two movies. Once last point: Elizabeth Hurley happens to be in both of these movies. I would love to know if she tried to point out to the producer and director of METHOD that THE WEIGHT OF WATER was very similar and didn't really work. If she did, why didn't they listen? And if she didn't, I guess she only wants to collect a paycheck.