Ooohhh, quirky.
There was a time when a single hook or twist would justify the creation of a movie
That time was called the 1980s and early 90s.
Aaaahhhh, the 80s, when action movies knew they were pointless, TV was a minor distraction and Tom Berenger was one of the most reliable guys going around.
Shattered starts off with a car flying off a cliff, the occupants of the wreck are taken to hospital, where the wife is told that her husband’s status is touch and go, and when I say touch and go she is basically told in very blunt terms that he is going to die, (some bedside manner doc!)
Anyway of course the hubby lives, although he is messed up and needs extensive surgery to reconstruct his facial features, obviously no airbags in the car. Tom is the hubby Dan, and Greta Scacchi plays his wife Judith who is with him through every step of his rehab.
One of those steps is to be in one of the cheesiest sex scenes in film history, replete with actual footage of waves crashing in between their lurve.
So Dan gets out of hospital, a bit proppy and with a case of amnesia, and finds out that the bastard is rich, with a big ass house and a partnership in a large and successful company.
Over the coming weeks Dan’s interactions with his wife and close friends (and business partners) Jeb, played by Corbin Bernsen and his wife Jenny bring different versions and viewpoints regarding many aspects of Dan’s life up to and including the night of the accident. These include the allegations that Judith was having an affair with a guy named Jack Stanton, and that she and Dan were headed for divorce.
So Dan goes through Judith’s diary to find out what’s going on and is lead to a local pet store, where Bob Hoskins runs the show as a part-time private investigator.
The ensuing investigations lead Dan to believe that someone tried to kill him for his cash, and the remainder of the movie takes him through all the twists, turns and revelations necessary in an 80s thriller.
I can’t explain much more without giving stuff away, suffice to say you’ll never see the end coming… unless you do.
Dan has itty-bitty partial flashbacks that are sometimes random and sometimes triggered by what he sees and hears.
Shattered is a bit overblown, think Basic Instinct style where everyone takes everything way too seriously and everyone is beautiful except for sidekicks and quirky characters where it is necessary that they be ugly. It’s almost hyper-real at times.
One point though, twenty odd years ago Greta Schacci had a rig that is almost not believable, notice I didn’t say unbelievable, although it is that too.
Final Rating 6 / 10. It’s OK I guess, but this is a paint by numbers thriller without any notable scenes.
