Rush of Fear (2003) Rosanna Arquette, Claudette Mink, Chris Potter, Diego Wallraff, Joseph Kell, Alan Van Sprang, Nigel Bennett, Jeremy Akerman Movie Review

Rush of Fear (2003)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Rosanna Arquette and Chris Potter in Rush of Fear (2003)

Diamond it isn't

Jack (Joseph Kell - The Seventh Stream) and his wife Alex (Rosanna Arquette - Mistaken Identity) have gone away for the weekend to try and deal with their marriage issues, whilst Jack was to meet up with Sam Bryant (Chris Potter - The Waiting Game), a dot com owner he was going to have a meeting with. But when Jack doesn't return, from returning the car back to a rental company, Alex begins to worry and tries to report her husband missing to the local sheriff. What Alex doesn't know is that a trio of jewellery thieves had previously used the car and a gem hidden in a make up bag ended up getting lost in it, leading to the thieves coming after them to find it. With Jack missing Alex seeks Sam's help to try and get to the bottom of things and quickly suspects it is to do with a make up bag which Alex handed in to lost property at the hotel.

Bad guys holding a husband prisoner, a stolen jewel in a lost make up bag, the cops suspecting the wife and friend having done away with the husband; these are just some of the cliches which make up "Rush of Fear". They are also part of the problem because being built on cliches makes this a less than enthralling thriller with just the occasional tense scene coming along to make you stir and pay attention. Even some twists tossed in to the mix involving the three thieves, who really shouldn't trust each other, working together fails to really make "Rush of Fear" the attention grabbing movie which maybe with more time and money it could have been.

It isn't just the cliches which end up letting "Rush of Fear" down as it is also the generic nature of the characters which are just as much at fault for it failing to grab you. To put it simply I couldn't even put a name to a single character and beyond Sam telling us he once owned a dot com I have no idea what any of them did. But then on top of this they throw in some action such as a scene where a motorbike jumps over a police road block and yes in some ways it is exciting yet it also feels massively out of place, tossed in to try and bring some sort of energy to what is other wise an ordinary movie.

What this all boils down to is that "Rush of Fear" is only ever at best middle of the road entertainment. But sadly it frequently ends up below par and a little of a struggle to remain interested in.


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