Unforgettable (2017)

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1. 

   Mrtrick

   Unforgettable. There's an ironic joke or two hundred to be made about the titular film's ephemeral nature. I'd wager that every film critic from newsprint to the blogosphere has taken their shot, so I'll digress.
   What we have here is a Lifetime Thriller of the week. Though it may have a more substantial budget, Unforgettable carries that same tried and true reliance on formulaic, run-of-the-mill writing and utter predictability. All of the inane contrivance keeping people from making logical or rational choices. Leaning on ludicrous coincidence for plot momentum. These are the means by which the writers create their "dramatic tension". Admittedly, most movies pull those strings, but the object is to obscure the puppeteer rather than shine a spotlight on them.
   At their core, these sorts of films are pure exploitation. (And that's not a word I consider inherently perjorative, the way a great many do.) They play certain cords to illicit a visceral--perhaps even necassary--response. But nowadays that tune is played safely under the auspices of a PG-13 rating. We don't get the likes of Body Heat or Basic Instinct anymore. The more salacious and triggering elements get watered down enough to pass cable standards and the PC Sniff test. So all you're left with is the formula. And if, as here, the writing doesn't elevate the banality, you just end up with a limp noodle.
   That's not to say Unforgettable doesn't know what it is. We get a little skin. A half-way kinky sex scene. Rosario Dawson and Katherine Heigl making a meal out of an appetizer. Geoff Stults relaying his usual earnest likability. Isabella Kai making a winsome impression. And..Well, that's about all I can come up with.
   There are actually other people in this movie, though they barely amount to more than their character description. (Whitney Cummings as..The Best Friend. Simon Kasianides as..The Abusive Ex.) Denise Di Novi keeps the wheels from falling off in her directorial debut, but it mostly seems a workman like effort. The music cues are really overwrought, trying too hard to elicit tension, often at times where it seems unnecessary (who needs ominous foreboding while watching equestrian). And the final conflict resolution is bizarrely anticlimactic and lame brained. Atleast we get a decent cat fight beforehand (though a more fun film would have relished it more).
   As much as I'm a sucker for this kind of potboiler, Unforgettable is too much like flat soda to earn my recommendation. I require more fizz from my pulp fictions. 4 years 6 months ago

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