Casualties (1997)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Alex Graves

Writers:

Alex Graves (screenplay)
Gary Preisler (screenplay)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

A woman tormented by an abusive, sadistic husband desperately tries to find her way out of her predicament...

Plot Keywords:

Domestic Violence | Independent Film

Cast

Caroline Goodall	...	Annie Summers
Mark Harmon	...	Tommy Nance
Michael Beach	...	Clark Cooper
Jon Gries	...	Bill Summers
John Diehl	...	Polito
Lisa Darr	...	Beth
Jennifer Joan Taylor	...	Teacher
Alex Paen	...	Newscaster
Stacy Johnson	...	Henderson
Blake Lindsley	...	Waitress
Kelly Bennett	...	Julie
Robert Peterson	...	Beth's Husband

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence and some language.

Runtime:

85 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:16 | South Korea:15 | New Zealand:R18 | Germany:16 | UK:18 | USA:R

Trivia:

The address at the final conflict was 1187 Hunterwasser, which is the same as Leon's address in Blade Runner (1982).

Movie Connections:

References Blade Runner (1982)

Jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire

Annie (Caroline Goodall)is a battered wife. "In the end," she says in a voice-over at the beginning of the movie, "(my story) is just a little fairy tale about feeling desperate."

Annie is married to a Bill (Jon Gries), a cop and wife-beating control freak who won't let Annie get a job or a divorce. She has tried to run away, but he always catches her. And she knows that eventually he'll kill her.

He likes to remind her that he saved her from her sexually abusive father. As he slams her head to the floor, he screams something about "that freak called 'Daddy,' that sick old f--- !"

So, the idea of murdering Bill sounds pretty good to Annie.

Meanwhile, Bill's partner, Clark (Michael Beach), a good-hearted man, tries to help her. But he can offer her only the standard legal remedies that don't necessarily guarantee her safety.

Bill allows her to take a cooking class; she loves it, and it's a way to get out of the house. One evening the instructor introduces a new student, Tommy (Mark Harmon), to the class, and immediately he and Annie strike up a friendship.

She asks what he does for a living. "I kill people," he says -- and laughs, after a long pause. Uh, just joking...

Eventually she tells him about her predicament. He listens sympathetically, then mentions another solution, one that is more conclusive than anything Clark can offer.

She agrees to it, her problem is solved -- and then she finds out, to her horror, that when it comes to possessiveness, her husband was an amateur compared to Tommy.

I'm always wishing for better-than-average straight-to-video movies. And I got what I wished for with this film. Great acting (Goodall, Harmon, and Beach are simply perfect in their roles) and a script with frequent flashes of irony and wit make this a very entertaining and satisfying movie indeed.

This wasn't great art, but I liked it.