No Good Deed (2002) Samuel L. Jackson, Milla Jovovich, Stellan Skarsgård, Doug Hutchison, Joss Ackland Movie Review

No Good Deed (2002)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Samuel L. Jackson and Milla Jovovich in No Good Deed (2002)

Odd Bods

Jack Friar (Samuel L. Jackson), a police detective in Grand Theft Auto, reluctantly agrees to help a friend track down their missing teenager. But it leads to Jack stumbling into a home where a trio of robbers Tyrone (Stellan Skarsgård), Erin (Milla Jovovich) and Hoop (Doug Hutchison) are planning a bank job and they tie him up as their hostage. With the diabetic Jack having to worry about his blood sugar and insulin he finds himself being watched over by the manipulative and seductive Erin who seems to be sweet on him or is she just playing games.

Not sure what the intention was when it came to "No Good Deed" but let me describe the characters; we have Stellan Skarsgård as Tyrone playing things sinister, then there is Doug Hutchison giving it bleached bond psycho with a short fuse, Milla Jovovich is next giving it femme fatale but with a sense of vulnerability. But there is more as we have Joss Ackland and Grace Zabriskie as a couple of gun toting pensioners who are part of this criminal gang as well as Jonathan Higgins as a bank employee who falls in with these guys. It is an odd bunch with each of the actors playing their characters on the side of being over the top. In the midst of all this is Samuel L. Jackson as are cello playing GTA detective who happens to be a diabetic and he is probably the most normal one out of the whole bunch.

As to what happens in "No Good Deed" well it is a case of a lot of double crossing with people ending up dead and you wonder who is screwing who and who is pulling all the strings. Trouble is that none of this is captivating, not the robbery, not the double cross and not the moment of sensuality as Milla Jovovich has a cello between her legs. And as such the whole point of keeping you guessing who the master manipulator is in all this never is good enough to keep you involved.

What this all boils down to is that "No Good Deed" is a not very good movie which fails to execute the central premise well enough to be the captivating movie it intendeds to be.


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