The Gift Reviews

Sam Raimi avoids the camp of the "Evil Dead" trilogy to deliver some serious scares in "The Gift," a Southern-Gothic ESP thriller that stars Cate Blanchett in the role of Annie, a psychic living in a small town.

When local flake Jessica King (Katie Holmes) gets murdered, Annie's sixth sense acts up, leading the authorities to one man- resident wife-beater and town redneck Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves.) Of course, Donnie's not the one who done it, and with her power under scrutiny, Annie must find the real killer before she, too, becomes a victim.

The strength of this movie is that it avoids the pitfalls of modern horror films. First of all, Annie isn't the usual ditzy, flaky, slutty heroine, who along with her group of dumb friends has a total IQ of 50. She behaves in an admirable and most of all, INTELLIGENT way.

It's probably not too hard to figure out who the real killer is, but there's a fun if maybe typically 'Southern-Gothic' characters to follow, including town headcase Buddy (Giovonni Ribisi,) who is trying to dredge up old memories with the help of Annie that might hold the key to his fractured mind.

Donnie's beaten wife, Valerie Barksdale (Hilary Swank,) puts Annie and her three boys in danger when she keeps showing up despite volatile Donnie's threats. Meanwhile, the victim's haggard fiance Wayne (Greg Kinnear) tries to carry on the best way he can.

Secondly, the jump-scares are pretty well-thought-out, not childish and predictable like in a lot of horror films. Call me crazy, but of all the scares scattered throughout the film- the dripping blood, the waterlogged corpse, and the surprise attack by the real killer- the dream-sequence fiddler scares the f**k out of me.

Overall, "The Gift" is a fun thriller, which occasionally hints at something more meaningful. The whole cast (including Keanu Reeves) performs admirably, and are backed by a solid script (co-written by Billy Bob Thornton) and Sam Raimi's directing. It is unfairly dismissed by audiences and deserves more attention than it gets.

Before making the Spider-Man trilogy and becoming one of the most successful mainstream directors, Sam Raimi made this moody super-natural thriller. It is also interesting to point out that Billy Bob Thornton did write this movie (maybe people tends to forget it but Thornton got his breakthrough with his directing and writing and not actually as an actor). Anyway, there are many things to enjoy here. First of all, Raimi knows how to direct a thriller and the whole thing was really a nice moody affair. Then, there was a very nice cast (Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Katie Holmes, Greg Kinnear, Hilary Swank, J.K. Simmons) and they all delivered some solid performances. It was above all pretty neat to see actors such as Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank or even Katie Holmes to play against type. Still, even though the whole thing was rather entertaining, I was still disappointed by the plot. Basically, it is one of those typical thrillers with a pedestrian plot and some obligatory and annoying twist at the end. It is quite a shame because, the director was good, the actors were good, the whole thing looked terrific, it's just too bad they didn't make sure they had a really terrific story to start with. To conclude, in spite of its flaws, it still remains a decent thriller and I think it is worh a look, especially if you like the genre.