Serenity - Review

Serenity

It’s my first new film for 2019 and with a star-studded cast of Academy Award winners Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, along with Academy Award nominated actors Diane Lane and Djimon Hounsou I could only reasonably conclude that this latest released film with them starring in it would be well worth my time and money regardless of its very low Rotten Tomato score of 21. So with the very best intentions I ventured off to see the latest noir thriller simply called “Serenity”.  

The film starts out with Matthew McConaughey character named “Baker Dill”. He is a fishing boat captain who leads tours off of the tranquil enclave of Plymouth Island in the Caribbean. His peaceful life is soon shattered when his ex-wife "Karen" (Anne Hathaway) tracks him down. She is desperate for help. The kind of help that is both dangerous, risky and potentially lucrative. She is there to beg her first love "Baker" to save her and their young son from her now second abusive husband and step father to their child “Frank Zariakas” (Jason Clarke). She wants "Baker" to take the abusive drunken brute out for a fishing excursion one day, wait until late in the evening and then throw him overboard to the shark infested waters. The payoff...........Frank is mega rich and Karen has promised her ex-Baker $10 million to do the simply deed.

Financially broke, Baker is thrust back into a life that he long hoped and wanted to forget, but now finds himself struggling to choose between doing the emotional right thing verses the financial wrong thing.

REVIEW: The good news is "Serenity" is better than the 21 score on Rotten Tomato. The bad news is not by very much. Feeling like hybrid parts of Martin Scorsese’s “Cape Fear”, David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks”, any daytime soap opera and the overly manipulative ABC TV show “Lost” the film is indeed a mind trip that never stops "mind tripping". And if this strange combination of entertainment footnotes embedded in your mind was not enough consider me watching this film while eating a large pizza smothered in yellow grits, truffles, hot sauce and chitterlings.......... Yeah, my friends it’s a metaphoric description of my experiencing an odd assortment of things masquerading as meaningful plot twists that were just unusual twists with scenes that were just strange.

“Serenity” while super sexy is burden with a plot that felt every inch it was being made up as it went along. And with a running time of 1:46 that was never boring, I also knew early on that something was amiss in the normal pace and movement of a movie. The director got a bit too cute with his meandering and confusing manipulation for meandering confusing manipulation sake.  

But what is really odd about "Serenity" was Director Steven Knight does have a very impressive resume of writing and directing for some solidly developed films such as “Eastern Promises”, “Dirty Pretty Things” and “Locke”. And yet I kept wondering after leaving the theater where was the inspiration for this film coming from for Knight. And the only thing I could I think of was he may have spent one too many nights watching his name sake in Director M. Night Shyamalan films to re-capture his styleand magic……… but in this case he apparently only watched the bad M. Night Shyamalan films made …………while inebriated.

Midway through the movie inspite of its hiccups the story still almost had me “hooked” just like the giant tuna “Baker” was obsessed in catching in the film's sub plot. I actually almost considered giving the film a slightly better review and score than the one noted below.  But the buildup in the last hour to its finale and specifically the finale itself felt like a giant bupkis misfire………….. “It was all big boat; no fish and no water”.

There was one piece of good news to share about "Serenity" .........I got to see Diane Lane semi naked. The other news is I got to see Diane Lane semi naked. And the final other good news is I got to see Diane Lane semi naked. Oh, and I also got to see Anne Hathaway’s stunt double naked and Anne semi naked.

“Serenity” was not a total disappointment but it was also nothing memorable either. It had a few rare moments that were quite enjoyable but the aggregate film is messy from its "big tuna" beginning to its "big tuna" end.

Now if you all will excuse me I am off to drink a couple of shots of Woodford Bourbon to remember the parts where Diane Lane was semi naked. I am thoroughly smitten.

1.75 Stars