Tödliches Vertrauen (2001)

Tödliches Vertrauen: Directed by Harold Becker. With John Travolta, Matt O’Leary, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Vince Vaughn. When Danny witnesses his stepfather Rick murder a man, Danny’s father Frank has to protect his son from the greatest danger.

“Frank and Laurie have been divorced for years but still get on well and look after their teenage son Danny. However when Laurie decides to get married to boyfriend Rick, Danny starts playing up, leading Frank to get involved with the happy couple to try and help his son accept the changes. However when an u0026quot;old friendu0026quot; of Ricku0026#39;s turns up at the wedding, Frank notices that Rick seems surprised by the man and, in casual chat, notices minor discrepancies in how the two men describe their relationship with one another. When Danny claims he has seen Rick murder his friend, Frank is the only one who believes his son.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBy choosing to let us in on the fact that Rick is indeed u0026quot;a bad manu0026quot;, this drama becomes more a matter of time rather than a film that is packed with twists and intrigues. The detail of what way Rick is a u0026quot;bad manu0026quot; is not revealed until later on but this detail doesnu0026#39;t really matter and although the u0026quot;revelationu0026quot; is delivered as a discovery, the fact that the audience already knew most of it, weu0026#39;re not really with Frank as he gets sucked in. This is not to say it is a bad film, just quite an unmemorable one, as it doesnu0026#39;t have much special going on in it and just delivers a typical u0026quot;enemy withinu0026quot; thriller (albeit quite low on thrills). This is due to the delivery mostly. Personally I would have preferred it if the film had kept an air of mystery and played with the character of Rick – it would have given Vaughn more to work with and would have made more of the mystery. As it is we trudge drearily towards the inevitable conclusion, doing what youu0026#39;d expect in a professional manner which might be enough for many viewers just looking to fill time.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe cast donu0026#39;t seem too thankful for having been given obvious material. Travolta is OK but he is hardly pushing out the olu0026#39; acting boat on this one. It is at least a chance to see Vaughn out of u0026quot;Swingersu0026quot; mode and he does well enough. It would have been much better for him to have had more mystery within his script but he is still OK. Tilney, Floyd, Santiago-Hudson and Buscemi all fill round the edges solidly enough but really nothing is there to allow any of them to do much more than produce generic performances within an obvious genre film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003ePolished and professional stuff then but nothing out of the ordinary or special. To fill a few hours with something undemanding and by-the-numbers, this is probably just good enough to do you as a genre film but a different delivery and better script could have produced something better and given Vaughn and Travolta more to do.”