Movie Review: No Good Deed

Sometimes I like a movie to be philosophical, challenge my beliefs and make me see something I’d never see.  In other cases, I sometimes just want to stare at some eye candy and forget everything else going on.  This movie is the latter.

The story of No Good Deed is hardly remarkable.  A dutiful woman stays at home in a terrible storm while her husband goes off to celebrate his father’s birthday.  An escaped convict decides to pay her a visit and wackiness ensues.  I’m amazed at how much physical punishment Elba’s character could take, getting conked on the head countless times. If he were a professional athlete, he would not survive a concussion test, but being a professional athlete, he would pass the test of hitting women (you know I wouldn’t be able to resist that one).  The story revolves around a man who was convicted of murder and decides to break out once not getting paroled.  He exacts some sort of revenge on a seemingly unknown woman.  Without giving the ending away, the twist was obvious in retrospect, it made the ending slightly more bearable.

This movie was entertaining enough for a $7 movie, but given the talent, there was more that could have been done.  If it was slated as a horror movie, it would have been more fun to see Elba’s character exact psychological horror instead of an apparent stupid thug.  There were so many different ways the movie could have been made to be more compelling, but the theatre was pretty packed, so I guess all you really need is a shirtless sexy man (Idris Elba) and story is water under the bridge.