MovieChat Forums > Pursued (2006) Discussion > This movie is terrible...

This movie is terrible...

posted 20 years ago by matt_in_oz
22 replies | jump to latest

I started to write a review of Pursued, but in the end, I couldn't bring myself to waste another minute on it.

This movie sucked - badly.

The story is bland. The acting only marginally better (which was a disappointment given the cast) and the portrayal of the technology, supposedly at the centre of the plot, woeful (mid-80s greenscreens etc).

The plot was flawed and, at one point, it looks as if 20 mins has been cut from the film, to the point that it loses continuity.

Almost all characters are below par:
Gil Bellows plays Ben Keats: A technology genius pushing a state of the art tracking system, except he can't type and can't use a mouse, which wouldn't have mattered so much if they hadn't kept focusing on it.

Christian Slater plays the recruiter who always gets his man: one way or another. His character is so totally over the top that his role is not believable. At one point, to show his ruthlessness, a CEOs wife is killed just to get the CEO to take a job... which the CEO then takes to avoid being framed for his wife's murder... you've got to be joking !

1/10 - do not waste two hours of your life on this.

[–] geeba_420 20 years ago

While I didn't find the movie QUITE as repulsive as you did (but in no way did I think it was very good), I did find it jaw dropping that Christian Slater's character constantly switches between driving a GMC SUV and a Cadillac Escalade... I see consistency flaws in movies all the time, but this was huge.

[–] bendner-2 20 years ago

I was the 1st AD on the film's second unit. We shot several pick-up shots weeks after main unit had wrapped. The Cadillac that was used on main unit was no longer available to us as it had been rented by Halle Berry as her personal drive-around vehicle while she was filming Catwoman in Vancouver. Believe it or not, there were NO other black Cadillac SUVs available for rent anywhere in Vancouver. I spent an afternoon making calls to make sure.

Pressed for time, we had no choice but to find as close a match as possible, and to hope that no one would notice. You did.

Sorry.

Michael Bendner

[–] mysticals 19 years ago

I usually give movies a break especially when they use different years of cop cars that are close to each other which get wrecked BUT this was a HUGE consistency flaw that actually threw me off. I assumed in the one scene when it was driving right at the camera where you saw it was a GMC SUV his character switched vehicles to throw them off his trail.

If an Escalade wasn't available, a GMC is very close but I would have made that one shot at another angle so we wouldn't see that it was a different brand GM SUV.

[–] Lovaela 20 years ago

It's obviously not THAT terrible. If it truly were, you wouldn't be wasting your time with going to a website, looking it up, and giving your opinion on it.

Really people. Get over yourselves.

[–] califaktress 20 years ago

I gotta agree with you Matt, this movie was terrible. About half way through it I completely lost interest. And it's too bad really, given the cast. Now I'm a huge Christian Slater fan, but this part did not do him justice at all. First "Pursed," then "Alone In The Dark?” When’s he going to get better representation to get him better scripts? I was terribly disappointed. Have been for a while. He's so talented. He just needs better material. “Mindhunters” wasn’t so bad, but he wasn’t in that one much. *sigh* What’s a girl to do? I’ll just sit and wait for his next movie, and hope it’s the “comeback” that I’ve been waiting for. Thank you for letting me say my piece.

[–] i3uqz 20 years ago

"“Mindhunters” wasn’t so bad"

Mindhunters was great, i loved it!

[–] joshe217 20 years ago

Where do you get off saying that Christian Slater is "talented"? This guys hasn't had a good movie since '89! I don't care how bad a script is, you can still work with it... I can think of plenty of terrible movies where I still thought "well so and so was still good".

[–] 2cents 19 years ago

Christian Slater IS talented "hasn't done a good movie since 89"?!? What other than Very Bad Things, Interview with a Vampire, True Romance, Robin Hood, Pump up the Volume, Untamed Heart, Murder in the first, The Contender etc etc.

All actors do make bad movies, 75% of Robert DeNiro's movies are solid gold *beep* it doesn't mean that the man lacks talent.

Please engage your brain before you comment.

[–] nickatnoon61 (247) 2 months ago

Or Juan better! MARRY yer brain!!! :P

[–] marty-192 19 years ago

I would rather use the word painful to describe Pursued. Christian Slater's character is so over the top that I couldn't make it past the halfway point--I had to turn it off. If you haven't seen this movie I recommend you don't.

[–] sugusdaniel 19 years ago

this movie was filmed in Vancouver, BC. The shots inside bookstore and on the street were below my apartment.

The only reason I watched was too see that.

It was a real made-for-tv movie......

[–] nickatnoon61 (247) 2 months ago

I'm from Vancouver also and I suspected it was filmed there after seeing a street sign that was W. 11th and LOTS of rain! (Kitsilano area?) There wasn't much else so far except about an hour in I see a Burrard st sign DT Vancouver. I moved away in 1993 and it has changed so much that I hardly recognize it now myself!

[–] 19 years ago

[deleted]

[–] johnharrold 19 years ago

Wow...a pay phone...that takes incoming calls...in a phone booth. I have not seen one of those in years.

By the way...I think that Ben was quite the stupid genious.

[–] cuttingedgenyc 19 years ago

It really was terrible. One of those movies that made me want to demand those two hours of my life back.

Great idea for a plot...terribly executed. Such a bummer.

[–] dan7800 19 years ago

I thought it was funny.

The guy's a computer genius, yet he never thinks to call the police and place a restraining order on the headhunter.

His wife was so damn stupid, I was just hoping she would get shot.

[–] DarrenDirt 19 years ago

It was on "peasant vision" (i.e NON-cable TV) last week, less than 2 years after release, so I should have known.

To me it was like a bullet -- a whole lot of powerful velocity at the beginning, but it lost steam very quickly and at the end because of the distance it had to travel it had little oomph left to make any kind of a significant impact.

I was impressed how the villain (Slater) appeared so evil at the end yet the writers had him be such a "nice guy" to the daughter and wife -- although the wife was a complete idiot to not see early on that it was just an act. And any claim to realism went out the window at the end, when the techie (Bellows) is all like Dirty Harry -- well I was not entirely disappointed to be interrupted by a phone call and so I missed a few of those concluding details :rolleyes:

I'd give it a 6/10 because it started with promise, and I knew early on it was "comic book thriller" not "Tom Clancy thriller" therefore my expectations were low and it *almost* reached them. :)

- - -

Chipping away at a mountain of pop culture trivia,
Darren Dirt.

[–] z99 18 years ago

it's pathetic A to Z

besides other mentioned points, why the hell Keats and the old man had to feed Palmer this tracking liquid and track him at Viztek -- just to see him coming in?

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[–] moviegeek71 17 years ago

All those people, those smart people, and not one of them called the police.

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"If I've never seen it before, it's a new release to me."

[–] CharlotteBronte 15 years ago

I can't call it terrible because I watched only around 30mins, something better came on TV.

Important advice

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[–] cynkat 15 years ago

Matt, I agree totally. Vincent was absolutely ridiculous as a character and I was just as irritated at the victims. I had recorded it on DVD and watched enough of it to fast forward to the all too predictable ending, at which time Vincent gets his oh-so-just rewards...

"Only the suppressed word is dangerous" -
Ludwig Börne