Domestic Disturbance (2001)

Best movie of this year hands down!

The Age of Commercialism

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Hard to resist and a little bit easy to forget, the sometimes unintentionally laughable "Domestic Disturbance" can be a nice and simple entertainment that rewards its audience with the most obvious clichés ever presented in films. The movie's premise is not new, the script takes the more traveled route just to please a larger part of the audience that loves some easy tension, those moments when you can play the psychic with family and friends while watching together, saying "That character is going to die now" things like that.Once again, there's a boy who because of his constant lies no one will believe when he finally says the truth and needs help from his parents. In this case, the boy (Matt O'Leary) is in trouble after being the sole witness of a crime committed by Rick, his stepfather (Vince Vaughn), arranged for life now that he recently married with Susan (Teri Polo), who divorced the boy's father (John Travolta). After that, it's a battle to prove that Rick is a killer and needs to stay away from his new family.Let's face it, the kid is a brat! The movie would be interesting if the writers take the father away and let the kid try to make things for himself, because he knows how to cause trouble and he could play fire with fire against his step dad. imagine this kid being a dangerous type who can challenge his opponent family member, knowing how to make the other guy a living hell, blackmailing the guy or doing tricky things, trying to survive the whole situation and we would have a greater picture. Instead, there's this other known thing. It's too damn predictable! You can always tell what's going to happen next, surprises are so rare to find in here.However, anyone can and will enjoy this flick due to fact the cast united here is very good even playing some dumb roles. Matt O'Leary and Steve Buscemi (as the mysterious Ray Coleman) are the best in the show; Vaughn and Travolta got a little bit ridiculous playing heavy clichéd figures, evil versus good. But it's not a great example of what Harold Becker knows how to do in terms of thriller (the spectacular ones "City Hall", "Malice" and "Sea of Love"). "Domestic Disturbance" is quite good, watchable but it's light years from being a helluva of a movie.10 years later and we're still waiting for another Becker's film, back in shape, but it looks like we're not gonna see that so early and this might be his last picture. That wouldn't be so good. 6/10

Having never been a real big John Travolta fan, I watched this just as a "filler"for the evening. I thought that John played a compelling role as the Dad of a struggling little boy. His acting was very believable to me. And for a change, I saw him as a "real" person. So often it seems that John has taken roles that, to me, have almost given him a comic persona. I really enjoyed watching him act with compassion and love displayed for his son, Danny,played very well by Matthew O'Leary. Although the script was somewhat predictable.It definitely more than kept my attention throughout. The actors were well cast for their roles. Vince Vaughn as the villain was perfect. As was Steve Buscemi,again perfectly type cast, as Vaughn's slimy ex-partner. I love that guy in any movie he appears in. Overall. Yeh. I give this movie more stars than average. I'd watch it again. Much better movie than I had anticipated.

Diluted thrills abound in this uninvolving re-run of THE STEPFATHER, in which a precocious youngster discovers that his new parent is, in fact, a cold-blooded killer who'll do anything to keep his crime a secret. Mainly getting by on the star presence of John Travolta alone, DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE is a well shot film that suffers from a weak script packed with Hollywood cliché. From the first twist, everything that plays out is entirely predictable, nowhere more so than the oh-so-boring climax that sees the protagonists trapped in their own home by a psychopath. From DISTURBIA to WHAT LIES BELOW, every film in the past ten years seems to end in exactly the same fashion and it's quickly become tiresome.Up until then, the film is serviceable but never surprising. The script foists upon us weak characters and it's hard to find somebody to care about – not least Matt O'Leary's brattish youngster. Vince Vaughn, so typecast in comedy these days, is never a threatening presence and you keep expecting him to crack a joke in his supposedly dramatic sequences. Teri Polo doesn't register, and only Steve Buscemi excels as a typical kook. As for Travolta, he's running through the motions, playing on the good nature he's won from audiences since PULP FICTION and never threatening to actually surprise us by acting.

If you like movies about people who use sincerity to hide a dark side, then "Domestic Disturbance" is for you. But if you're looking for something with a twist on the genre, then you'd better look elsewhere. This movie has absolutely nothing fresh in it, but it makes up for that as pure entertainment. Unlike "The Stepfather", this one has a new character, the ex of the woman whom the stepfather is about to marry. Stop me if you've heard this one: A man's ex-wife marries a very suspicious man, kid starts suspecting something's wrong, kid witnesses his evil stepfather kill someone, everyone (but the uncle) doubts the kid until it's almost too late, evil stepfather tries beating the hell out of everyone, everyone else lives happily ever after.*** out of ****