In Theaters: Derailed

Derailed stars Jennifer Anniston and Clive Owen as strangers having an affair that get robbed and subsequently blackmailed by a vicious criminal played by Vincent Cassel. The movie wants to be a taught mind twister but unfortunately Director Mikael Hafstrom doesn't bring much originality to the screen with this adaptation of James Siegel's page turning novel. The movie is not horribly done and manages to thrill on a small level, however it falls prey to the "there must be a twist at the end" bug that has infected hollywood for far too long. Derailed tries to make the audience go "ohh" at the end instead of truly thrilling anyone past the unexpected gunshot or yelling scene. It even cops out and throws in the menacing mug of Xibit, a well known rapper, as the woefully miscast sidekick of the aforementioned bad guy.
In another curious bit of casting RZA, another well known rapper, is cast as Clive Owen's coworker and when Owen finds himself in trouble with the bad guys he turns to RZA for assistance. This casting is curious because while we can fathom how Cassel got hooked up with his bad rapper, we are given two flimsy reasons why Owen would be so close to RZA, one involving computers and one involving trivia, yeah sure.
Jennifer Anniston is in neutral, obviously trying to make us forget she was the wholesome peppy Rachel for the past 100 years. While her performance wasn't anything to get excited about she didn't do the film any harm, the harm had already been done by the time she started pouting and crying over her situation.
I don't want to sound over harsh on this film because it wasn't awful. It just didn't thrill me to the point where I could over look the implausible ending and numerous cliches. Derailed will make a better rental.