Waiting for Dr. MacGuffin director David Ondaatje takes his love for the "Master of Suspense" to the next logical step with this updating of the 1926 Alfred Hitchcock classic which shifts the action from turn-of-the-century London to contemporary Los Angeles. Adapted from the same Marie Belloc Lowndes novel that inspired the early Hitchcock effort, Ondaatje's thriller follows a mysterious lodger suspected of being a vicious copycat killer. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
This strained, empty effort doesn't work as homage or update, and in its darkly violent sensibility has neither the glamour of Brian De Palma's referential nightmares or even the narrative fuel of the serial-killer-obsessed procedurals that dominate tv.
Filled with second-rate Brian DePalma twists, noirishly blurred lights and usually solid actors mouthing potboiler brine, The Lodger resembles bottom-shelf '80s dreck.
A good cast can't save The Lodger, the utterly wrongheaded fourth movie version of a 1910 novel inspired by Jack the Ripper that was most famously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1926.
A smart and creepy thriller transposing a classic London tale to in-your-face modern Los Angeles. Helmer David Ondaatje's deft handling of actors and subtle twists demand a second viewing.
Burdened by a cliche-ridden burnt-out-cop movie screenplay and over-the-top performances that don't mesh, this is a thriller that doesn't thrill as much as it irritates.
The director playfully taunts with the copycat notion of a little of Jack The Ripper in any man, in this flashy when not murky copycat thriller, and those particular unhealthy fixations manifested in varying degrees on both sides of the law.
Stylish cinematography along with a pulsating musical score make for a somewhat chilling experience, but had writer/director Ondaatje kept the story focused on the serial killings investigation without going off on poorly developed tangents, the film woul
A virtual tsunami of directorial incoherence %u2014 arbitrary visual cliches of the clouds-speeding-across-the-sky variety, and some of the most inappropriate use of classical music in the history of movies.
Ondaatje's lack of certainty seeps from the dialogue and characterizations to his choice of an overwrought aria-heavy score and a shoddy sense of style that recalls episodic television and myriad Silence of the Lambs rip-offs.
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