Lethal Eviction
***
DVD
Directed By
Written By
Cast
uncredited to prevent spoilers
Remember, this week, Cassava Films (www.cassavafilms.com)
is sponsoring me. "Serial Slayer" is on InDemand pay-per-view for the
next month, so catch it, or pester your cable company. It's good stuff!
And you've noticed no credits this week--that's a new one, folks...and there's a reason for it.
I'm not crediting anyone this week. No directors, no writers, no
cast, nobody. Because if I did it would destroy a key plot element.
You've probably caught on that this is an advance look at a movie
that isn't even on shelves yet. So I have to be a little more careful
than usual, lest I
give something away. And there's more than a little to give away, too.
So what we have here is what I like to think of as "The Super" gone
horribly, horribly awry. We've got a slumlord running a rent-controlled
building and
looking to sell. Considering he dies within the first five minutes, you can tell we'll be going a totally different angle here.
And indeed, we are. From one slumlord to two slumlords, slumlords so
aggressive that they're looking to get their rent-controlled tenants
out of
the building, so they can quadruple (yes, quadruple--that's
four times for those of you who don't like math much.) the rents.
Slumlords so aggressive that they’ll stoop to any means necessary to
get their tenants out of the building, or so it seems.
A father-daughter slumlord team, no less.
Which makes me cringe, in all honesty. But still, they work out
well. Especially when you consider that this is probably one of James
Avery’s first paying jobs since The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air stopped
stinking up our television screens way back in the mid nineties.
James Avery actually manages to waver between doting father and mild
psychopath, which is frankly an amazing juxtaposition that I can’t help
but applaud, and Judd Nelson also manages to turn in a performance of
no small quality as a psychiatrist with more on his mind than we think.
For some strange reason, the drag queen reminded me briefly of Ashton
Kutcher. Though I'm not sure exactly why....
The best thing about “Lethal Eviction” is that it’s actually rather
creative, in its own little way. We have a microcosm of society, with
the drag queen crackheads, the violent drug dealers, the holy roller on
the third floor who lives with her two dogs and the two drunk burnouts
who live with the violent drug dealer. We have plots and subplots and
murder sprees and assorted whatnot going on all over the place.
A plot this complex, however, can’t escape without some minor flaws.
For example, look towards one of the final murders toward the end.
Bathtub, drug injections, drowning...look familiar? It should! You're
watching an entire sequence from "What Lies Beneath" except without
Harrison Ford geezering his way through it! I really can't believe this
was in there--it's so blatant a thievery that it should be arrested and
locked up with the crackhead drag queen.
Worse yet, we have some unresolved plot issues--for instance, things
like a detective finding jewelry and a medicine bottle in a medicine
cabinet. How did it get there? There are guesses, of course...but the
movie never does definitively state exactly what happened, and that
would have helped. Audiences shouldn't have to make guesses about where
the plot is going.
Okay, so this is a really rather minor gripe in a fairly solid
overall field. Let's face it--"Lethal Eviction" is a class-A murder
mystery, jammed to the gills with plot twists and red herrings. The
deviousness of some of these will hit you by such surprise that you
will not be able to help a gasp of alarmed amazement or two as some new
fact is revealed.
The ending is nothing short of harrowing, with lots of darkened-room
chases and perilous moments. If that isn't good enough, we also get a
fantastic plot twist to close things out on. Just remember, the more
things change, the more they stay the same.
You'll understand that much better when you watch the movie.
The special features didn't make an appearance for my advance screener, but I'm sure there will be some, eventually.
All in all, "Lethal Eviction" is a choice little murder mystery.
It's not without its flaws, but you should get your money's worth from
its enjoyment.
| 
