The Principals: Jennifer Lopez, Jim Caviezel, Sonia Braga, Terrence Howard, Jeremy Sisto, Victor Argo, Monet Mazur, Shirley Knight.
The Premise: A Chicago cop, Sharon Pogue (Lopez), gets drawn into the mysterious world of a quiet street drifter (Caviezel) who saves her life during a robbery bust. The drifter, known only a “Catch,” seemingly has no past and a constant glazed look in his eyes that makes it look as if he’s just seen his parents having sex…with animals. He spends his time doing minor Samaritan work with anyone he meets. Meanwhile, Sharon splits her time between trying to find out more about Catch and dealing with her own family issues, which stem from having arrested her father for beating her mother.
“Let’s go back to my place, we can take my car.”
“What do you drive?”
“A Honda Pilot.”
“Pilate?!!!”
Is it Good: It’s not so much a question if it was good (it’s maudlin tripe, FYI), it’s that it was completely marketed to be something that it wasn’t. From the TV promos, I got the distinct sensation that this was either a thriller about a man with no past, or even some sort of downbeat supernatural tale. What it turned out to be was two sad sacks who fumble with their relationship for half the movie and spend the other half either perpetuating their post traumatic stress stupor or pining away for a family relationship that’s broken beyond repair. It’s a downer of a Lifetime movie at best wrapped up in a (then) A-List theatrical package.
So what ended up being Catch’s big secret as to why he was walking the streets of Chicago like the Prozac poster boy? His wife and daughter were killed in a crash that he survived. That same crash was also the first time that Catch and Sharon met, as she was on the job and helping him out of the car. Cut to a year later, and she’s the family pariah and he’s a shell-shocked do-gooder.
Caviezel was coming off his performances in The Thin Red Line and the flawed but interesting Frequency.
Lopez was at the height of her theatrical and musical success, despite
a string of movies that were continual disappointments from her work in
Out Of Sight.
I didn’t find a single sympathetic character in the entire movie, and
certainly not the two leads, the first of which is too stupid to
realize that she longs for a family that has turned their backs on her
and the other who’s too stupid to realize pretty much anything.
“Actually, this whole ‘walking the streets in a stupor’ thing started after I was in Ed…”
Is it Worth a Look: Only as part of a J.Lo trilogy of doom along with Enough and Monster-In-Law.
Random Anecdotes: My wife and I go to see this in the theatres, expecting to see an interesting thriller, and instead getting a depressing, ridiculous waste of a weekend afternoon. She actually comes out liking it; but I come out ready to chew nails and kill the first homeless person I can find who even reminds me of Catch. I don’t think I’ve ever been as mad coming out of a movie as I was with this one…and I saw Blade: Trinity.