I never intended to review this movie, but now I have to.

July 13th, 2009 by Michiel

I was minding my own business after coming home from a doctors appointment, and my girlfriend is watching The Rendering. It is one of those crappy chick flik dramas and stars Shannen Doherty. I mostly ignored it by surfing the web for info on the new Champions Online game and the upcoming Star Trek Online, but I was able to pick up a few key plot points.

Shannen Doherty is a police sketch artist and she does a sketch of a serial rapist and it looks just like her husband.

Oh wait… there are more twists and turns in this epic.

It ends up that her husband was framed by some guy, I don’t know his name but we will call him Dick. Dick had attacked her in the past and had been sent to prison for whatever he did or tried to do to Shannen Doherty. I missed the beginning of the movie so I am not sure about exactly what happened in the past, but I do know Dick held a grudge against Shannen Doherty. Also, I was not paying close attention as to how Dick orchestrated the plot to frame her husband, and plant evidence in their house from prison, but I was able to learn that Dick found a look alike for her husband in prison and had that guy do the rapes.

Later I catch a detail where Dick convinces Shannen Doherty that he will promise to keep her husband safe in prison if she testifies at his parole hearing and he gets out. Naturally, she does this and Dick is released.

In shocking plot twist, it ends up that it was a mistake for her to trust the word of the guy who attacked her and framed her husband for crimes he didn’t commit, but she does and Dick turns on her.

Again, I missed how this criminal was able to arrange it, but he gets the guards to move a killer to Shannen Doherty’s husbands cell. The guard even gave an evil/maniacal laugh when putting the guy in the cell with her husband. But, miraculously when the rumble takes place, after lights out, her husband ended up killing the killer.

At this point I am watching the movie with my full attention, and because it is so bad, I must comment about it to the girlfriend. Apparently she missed some details while I was critiquing the film, so she rewinds it and that’s when I realize this isn’t live tv and she got sucked into a bad movie.

Noooo.

She recorded it on the DVR.

Now, before we continue the review, lets get something straight, my girlfriend has a knack for hogging all the space on our DVR with cooking shows and crime dramas. It is usually so full there is no space to record what I want, even though I am supposedly the one that can’t share, because I am an only child, but unlike me, my girlfriend, the eldest of five, has sharing mastered.

As you can tell, this is an “issue” between her and I. And I had to comment on how she defiled our DVR with this awful movie, and this is why we were unable to record the Daily Show and Colbert Report last night and the premiere of Ghost Hunters International last week when we were out of town, because “The Renderering” was taking up space.

OK, let me take a deep breath and continue my review of this so called “movie.”

So, almost immediately, the police realize she was right about the plot to frame her husband, they arrest Dick and let her husband out of prison immediately. This time I did not miss how this happened, they just realized the dead guy in the cell was a murderer and that was all the proof they needed to let her husband go. How they caught Dick, I’ll never know. But you see cops bringing him in as they let out Shannen Dohertys husband. Fortunately this gives Dick the chance to practice his acting and make a menacing face at Shannen Doherty and her husband.

So, you think the movie is over, as Shannen Doherty and her husband have sex, and he comments that the thought of this is what kept him alive in prison. They then decide they are going on vacation because, “they both deserve it after all that has happened.”

While the happy couple packs, we cut away to Dick in the back of a cop car, where he fakes a heart attack or something and one of the cops climbs in the back seat to help, without his gun drawn or his partner covering him. (The partner stays in the front passenger seat). Dick chokes the cop with hand cuffs and gets his gun. Now the partner gets on the radio and Dick shoots them both.

Cut to the phone ringing and the answering machine going off, and the cops leaving a message for Shannen Doherty that Dick has escaped, but she is drying her hair and misses it. When she comes out her husband is gone and Dick left her a note on where to find them.

She shows up, Dick tries to kill her. She fights with him and holds her own against a hardened criminal who was recently released from prison and only prevails when Dick accidentally hits his head on a nail sticking out of the wall and is killed.

Shannen unties her husband, and as they walk off, she says, “Lets go home.” Neither of them looks even remotely upset or distressed or even relieved that they just got out of a life and death situation. They just blandly walk off and the credits roll.

In short, I think the writers, the directors, actors and even editors just gave up at the end of this film.

So as a movie I give it one out of five stars.

As a movie that is MS3TK-able, I give it four and a quarter stars, and a full five for the last ten minutes.

I would say check it out, but really, I don’t know that it is a good idea.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Hollywood, Michiel. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Minty Says:
July 13th, 2009 at 9:24 pm

This was on Lifetime, wasn’t it? Or Oxygen. One of those sad cable channels marketed to women, right? Good gods.

Excuse me while I go scrub my brain with a movie that better portrays reality, like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Michiel reply on July 13th, 2009 10:43 pm:

Actually, it was LMN, which I had never heard of until a couple weeks ago.

When we were watching, my girlfriend said that I have to suspend disbelief for this movie, and I corrected her by saying that it requires I kill off portions of my brain for it to be remotely believable.

tenhigh reply on July 14th, 2009 12:24 am:

Yes indeed, this sounds like one of those movies my roommate used to call “everclear adventure” movies, the sort of thing that takes 95% ethanol to really appreciate, and just isn’t the same while sober…

captcha: edger Judson- the editor of this amazing film

Sean reply on July 14th, 2009 12:39 am:

Any girlfriend that would clog a DVR with a TV movie that Markie Post, Valerie Bertinelli and Delta Burke were too busy to appear in is no girlfriend any man should have.

On that note, you know that you can password protect DVR’s, right?

Minty reply on July 14th, 2009 9:23 am:

I was going to say something along those lines, but then figured Michiel might be getting some Vicarious Anger Sex, so decided to stay out of it.

LordEnigma reply on July 14th, 2009 6:53 am:

I watched that JUST LAST NIGHT FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

Sicarius reply on July 14th, 2009 7:47 am:

A better movie is Snatch.

Minty reply on July 14th, 2009 9:21 am:

They both have their charms.

Axiluvia Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 1:38 am

See, I’m female, and I would never watch something of this amount of tripe.

First off, this doesn’t call for suspension of disbelief. This calls for you suspending your belief in women not being completely f***ing retarded. If I was her husband, I would have smacked her in the face for letting the guy out in the first place.

Which, sadly, would be even more like a Lifetime movie.

Lifetime, television for women. To watch other women get beaten, raped, beaten again, and humiliated, but somehow, it’s okay.

TeratoMarty reply on July 14th, 2009 8:42 am:

… you make it sound like a kind of pornography for sadists who like their schadenfreude. Jeez. Makes whips and chains seem vanilla.

Dave in NC reply on July 14th, 2009 10:02 am:

I love how my sister put this: Oxygen, Lifetime, etc. love to show art intended for women.

That’s A.R.T. – Abuse, Rape and Trauma

Minty reply on July 14th, 2009 12:47 pm:

I find it particularly interesting that women such as Ms. Proctor shriek about how demeaning Playboy is to women, and yet there’s never a peep about the glorification of violence against women and children on the Lifetime/Oxygen/LMN programs.

BTW–I’d bitch about violence against men, but people tend to be okay with it because it’s a) thrilling (e.g. UFC), b) dramatic (e.g. Law & Order), and c) “deserved” (e.g. every single minute aired by Lifetime/Oxygen/LMN). Men, when are you going to speak out against this cruel injustice? It’s demeaning, I tell you! Demeaning!

Billy reply on July 14th, 2009 2:27 pm:

But violence is so much fun!

StoneWolf reply on July 14th, 2009 3:01 pm:

Hell yeah!

Jim A Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 11:25 am

When was the last time that one of those artist’s sketched that they show on the news had more than a passing resemblence the the person ultimately arrested? But in HOLLYWOOD-land they always look exactly like the perp. As if they sat down for an hour in front of a great artist.

Timbo reply on July 14th, 2009 2:47 pm:

Good point. Compare the FBI’s unabomber sketch with Ted Kaczynski. They’re nothing alike, well both have one mouth and a nose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Kaczynski

StoneWolf Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:08 pm

I’m curious, why is it perfectly fine for a man to respond to violence with violence, but woman must respond with frailty and stupidity? When will we see the movie where some bozo tries to rape the heroine and instead of fighting pathetically and being traumatized, she shoots him dead? Or what about craptastic movies like “The Marine”? Disregarding just how flawed it was, is anybody going to make the movie where the chic rescues hubby?
One of my favorite characters recently in movies was Lucy McClaine in the latest Diehard. Instead of being the classic damsel in distress, she shows an amazing amount of backbone. It was awesome. Of course it doesn’t hurt she was played by Mary Winstead, one of my favorite actresses.

Minty reply on August 5th, 2009 10:26 am:

Because women are supposed to be gentle and delicate in order to trick men into marrying them. Strong, violent women end up alone, or are lesbians, so don’t count as real women.

Says me, who mixes up cake batter while debating the finer points of bastard swords compared to “true” two-handed long swords with a blacksmith neighbor.

StoneWolf reply on August 5th, 2009 12:25 pm:

Okay, for most men and women you’re probably right. But then you have lads like me who are impressed when a woman actually knows what a broadsword is, let alone how to use it and find “strong, violent women” to be more attractive than the delicate flowers out there. Can you possibly fathom the heartbreak when a good hardy tomboy who can hunt and camp decides to turn “delicate” just to win a mate?

Minty reply on August 5th, 2009 2:01 pm:

And why didn’t you go for the hardy tomboy? See, this is the problem we “tough women” have–all you men say you like it when we do the same things you do, but you always go after the girly-girls.

Well, either that or look at us funny when we whip out knitting while waiting for a deer to wander up the path so we can shoot it.

StoneWolf reply on August 5th, 2009 3:22 pm:

Ah, see, but I do go after the tomboys. The farmgirl from Maine in college who liked to wrestle and hunt, the EMT chick when our first date was the firing range. Now, as to knitting while hunting, if I saw my best friend’s mother, who taught him to hunt, do that I would be perfectly normal behavior for her. I had a math professor who graded tests while hunting and it was not unusual for him to return tests with dirt and blood on them. Maybe there’s not many like me, but I do honestly love tomboys, or at minimum girls with those tendencies.

If I ever lived through a classic fantasy story, after rescuing the princess I’d ransom her back to her father and marry the dirty blood-soaked broadsword swinging gal who helped me rescue Miss Dainty McUseless.

GBlair Says:
July 15th, 2009 at 2:42 am

We salute you for having to watch that crap.

Captcha: Mrs Clause – is on the naughty list now, if you know what I mean.

Phantom Says:
July 16th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

This would be the exact same reason I hate going to the Young Adult section of the library. Even disregarding the fact that basically every story is the same, if it’s got a heroine, she’s going to be AMAZING and POWERFUL and FORGET THE LAWS OF PHYSICS, I CAN DO THIS.

Lacey Socks Says:
July 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

Michiel, You may want to consider purchasing a TiVo expander; we got one a Western Digital one off of amazon. Works good.

Cheers!