Fallen Directed by Gregory Hoblit
`Fallen' is what's known as a supernatural thriller. That means that the bad guy is a ghost or a demon or something weird like that. The question is in these things, who do you want to win? The insufferable good guy who is morally pure or the demon/ghost/devil?
The i.g.g is John Hobbes(Denzel Washington), a heroic cop, who when we meet him, is at a state prison to witness the execution of Edgar Reese(Elias Koteas), a serial killer[serial killers are tres chic, you know] who's been taunting Hobbs for years.
We soon learn that Hobbs lives with his extraordinarily wimpy brother Art (Gabriel Casseus) and Art's son Sam (Michael J. Pagan) and that because of this his girlfriend had moved out. Guess who's going to get it...
But this is a supernatural thriller and Reese isn't just Reese. He's also Azazel, Satan's left hand man, who can possess innocent people and other mammals and can move from one to the other by touching them. A nifty gimmick that while giving a lot of actors work, begins to grate on one after a while.
This version of `the wave' isn't quite as fun as those at baseball games because, unfortunately, most of the film is a sophomoric rehash of every other supernatural thriller made over the past twenty years.
Most of the cast is okay. John Goodman, Donald Sutherland and James Gandolfini are good as Hobbs' fellow clueless colleagues, Embeth Davidtz overacts as the theologian daughter of a cop Azazel has played around with thirty years before and who gives some vital clues, and Robert Joy has a good time as Azazel's new temporary digs.
But the film takes itself too seriously, and the use of narration and the ending are both cheats.
Definitely video fodder...
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