Derailed

Married businessman Charles Schine (Owen) shares a seemingly innocent flirtation with fellow train passenger Lucinda Harris (Aniston).But when lust takes over, disaster strikes, and both find themselves at the mercy of French 'wrong sort' and general nasty bloke LaRoche (Cassel).One of the opening films for new studio The Weinstein Company (who gave us Miramax), Derailed is a film that looked like a fine idea on paper, (hugely successful source novel) but it simply doesn't come off in practice. The performances are fine, Owen is as workman-like and reliable as ever, while Aniston gives another one of her better-than-the-material performances that seemed her forte until The Break-Up. The problem(s) with Derailed lies in the incredibly shabby pacing, ridiculously underwritten supporting characters and a 'twist' so predictable that you spend almost two-thirds of the film waiting for them to get it over with. Surprisingly scripted by Stuart Beattie - who wrote the excellent Collateral - its biggest downfall is its failure to drag even an ounce of tension out of a plot that should've had us biting our nails in anticipation. If it wasn't for the cast, this would have been a straight-to-DVD film and then forgotten. It's now on DVD.. forget it!