Good People (2014)
Directed by Henrik Ruben Genz
Tom and Anna Wright, a young American couple, fall into severe debt while renovating Tom's family home in London. As the couple faces the loss of their dream to have a house and start a family, they discover that the tenant in the apartment below them is dead, and he's left behind a stash of cash—$400,000 worth. Though initially hesitant, Tom and Anna decide that the plan is simple: all they have to do is quietly take the money and use only what's necessary to get them out of debt. But when they start spending the money and can't seem to stop, they find themselves the target of a deadly adversary—the thief who stole it—and that's when very bad things start happening to good people.
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What starts as a London-based riff on the themes of Shallow Grave gradually descends into a bargain-basement Straw Dogs as James Franco and Kate Hudson’s misplaced American couple grapple with the fallout of finding a stash of cash amid their dead tenant’s belongings.
What starts as a London-based riff on the themes of Shallow Grave gradually descends into a bargain-basement Straw Dogs as James Franco and Kate Hudson’s misplaced American couple grapple with the fallout of finding a stash of cash amid their dead tenant’s belongings.
In adapting Marcus Sakey’s source novel, Kelly Masterson (“Snowpiercer”) contributes few fresh ideas, leaving it to Genz to ride to his rescue accompanied by a uniformly strong cast that includes Oscar-nominee Tom Wilkinson as a rogue cop seeking revenge against a ruthless dealer (Sam Spruell) he blames for his daughter’s overdose, and Omar Sy (“The Intouchables”) as a high-class crime lord improbably named Genghis Khan.
So when we get to the third act and Good People takes a page from Home Alone, things perk up substantially.
By the time Good People arrives at its extended climax—set at the Wrights’ still-being-renovated house, which they’ve turned into a booby trap that’s like Home Alone as designed by Jigsaw—it’s left any semblance of reality far behind.
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With off-kilter Danish genre specialist Henrik Ruben Genz (“Terribly Happy”) making his English-language debut from a script by “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” writer Kelly Masterson, it’d be reasonable to expect a few more blackened twists in the tale of a hard-up Yank couple ( James Franco and Kate Hudson ) dragged into the Cockney underworld after pocketing a stash of dirty money from their deceased tenant.
Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz (“Terribly Happy”) can’t hide his cards and rarely even tries to.
Adapted by Kelly Masterson ( Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead ) from Marcus Sakey’s novel, and directed by Danish filmmaker Henrik Ruben Genz ( Terribly Happy ), who’s working in English for the first time, Good People utterly fails to transcend its generic scenario, coming up woefully short in both visual style and inventive plotting.
Director Henrik Ruben Genz is an Oscar nominee for Best Live Action Short and also made the very good crime film Terribly Happy (2008).
With off-kilter Danish genre specialist Henrik Ruben Genz (“Terribly Happy”) making his English-language debut from a script by “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” writer Kelly Masterson, it’d be reasonable to expect a few more blackened twists in the tale of a hard-up Yank couple ( James Franco and Kate Hudson ) dragged into the Cockney underworld after pocketing a stash of dirty money from their deceased tenant.
The script, by Kelly Masterson (who also wrote the galvanic 2007 Sidney Lumet thriller “Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead”) from a book by Marcus Sakey , gives the impression of having been a tight, lean one.
Adapted by Kelly Masterson ( Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead ) from Marcus Sakey’s novel, and directed by Danish filmmaker Henrik Ruben Genz ( Terribly Happy ), who’s working in English for the first time, Good People utterly fails to transcend its generic scenario, coming up woefully short in both visual style and inventive plotting.
Screenwriter Kelly Masterson -- who adapted Marcus Sakey's novel -- previously wrote Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and Snowpiercer .
The last time we saw Franco in this kind of pulpy programmer — last year’s Jason Statham vehicle “Homefront” — he was on methed-up, reptilian villain duty, and he’s having visibly less fun as the ostensible hero here.