Search - While She Was Out [Blu-ray] on Blu-ray

Nanette S. (neen) from LEHI, UT
Reviewed on 11/9/2010...

It wasn't as scary as I was hoping for but the way she killed the men was very interesting. However, I didn't care for the ending, it completely ruined the movie for me.

Formulaic Nonsense, But the Actors Try

J. Michael Click | Fort Worth, Texas United States | 04/11/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Although "While She Was Out" boasts an original twist or two, you've basically seen it many, many times before. It's the one about the passive woman facing a threat so monstrous that she reaches down into her core and finds a transformative strength and rage she never knew she possessed. Think Jennifer Lopez in "Enough", Olivia de Havilland in "Lady in a Cage", Nicole Kidman in "Dead Calm", Debbie Reynolds in "Singin' in the Rain". (Just kidding on that last one.)

This time, Kim Basinger is the lady. An abused wife and mother, she goes to the mall on Christmas Eve, and leaves a note on a car taking up two spaces in a crowded lot. Predictably, the car belongs to a gang of four psychopathic toughs who kill the mall cop that comes to her rescue. She manages to escape in her vehicle, but wrecks it in a new property development surrounded by woods, and flees into the forest with her trusty tool box, the murderous gang hot on her heels.

All this might be kind of silly fun, except the screenplay asks the audience to stretch belief beyond the breaking point. Despite the enormity of the forest at night, the gang tracks her down by (no, I'm not making this up) picking up the lingering scent of her perfume and sweat in the air, by tracking little droplets of her blood, by shining their flashlight in just the right spot while she's standing in the open. Of course, she helps them out by whimpering and thrashing through the forest with as much noise as possible. Plus, she stands in the middle of a shallow stream and screams at the top of her lungs, "God! Where are you God?!!" ... hardly a smart thing to do if you're trying to avoid detection.

That the movie is even watchable is attributable to a fairly engaging performance by Kim Basinger as the lady in distress (she also co-produced) and a valiant effort by Lukas Haas as the leader of the gang. Haas has some of the worst dialogue ever written, and he almost ... almost ... manages to make it sound credible. There is also a wonderful payoff in the final shot of the film, and so it ends on an intriguing note. Unfortunately, these credits don't nearly begin to make up for the film's obvious detriments, and so I can't recommend a purchase. Rent it if you're a Basinger or Haas fan; otherwise, you might want to skip this one altogether.
"

Horrible Thriller, Great Comedy!

nina | 09/20/2010

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Wow. Where do I begin? If you wonder why I gave this movie two stars it's only because I am a big Kim Basinger fan and I like Lukas Haas too. Everything else deserves less than one star but I decided to be generous. This was one of the most ridiculous so-called thrillers I've ever seen in my life. It wasn't crafty. It wasn't clever. It wasn't mysterious, and the only thing frightening was that someone actually thought this needed to be a movie. Why inflict such pain on the innocent movie lovers of the world?

We start off with Della (Basinger) who is supposed to be an abused wife. The only evidence of this we see is her husband (Craig Scheffer, why he's still getting parts I have no idea), yelling at Della about cleaning up the house. He jacks her up and this is supposed to convince us that Della is a battered wife. Please. So Della goes out on Christmas Eve to get some wrapping paper and all hell breaks lose. And I mean for the audience as well because the film goes downhill with every turn to the point where you'd wish she'd just go back to the house and call it a night so we can go on with our lives.

During her outing, Della is confronted by four thugs. She's left a note on their car about them taking up two parking spaces. This was the biggest question mark to me in the whole movie. HOW THE HELL DID THEY KNOW DELLA WAS THE ONE WHO LEFT THE NOTE? No one was in the car when she left it! Yet these guys knew it was her? Come on! This group who I nicknamed the Mickey Mouse club because they were about as intimidating as four little girls fighting over a Barbie doll, decides to teach Della a lesson. Lukas Haas (who I can't believe would even think of being in this mess) plays Chuckie the so-called leader of this "gang". Please. Chuckie is aided by an Asian gangmember, a black gangmember, and a Hispanic gangmember. Yes it's the Junior United Nations. This was the most unrealistic part of the film. Not only was it laughable to believe all of these guys were supposed to be tough, but you mean you have a black and a Hispanic in the group and the white dude is the leader? On top of that I couldn't figure out why Chuckie who is thirty years old is hanging around these "kids" or are we supposed to believe that Haas is a teen? If so I wouldn't be surprised with the BS we were forced to believe in this film.

So after Della witnesses this crew killing a security guard she's thrust into fighting for her life. The movie turns into a bad replica of Judgment Night except this film isn't even in that movie's league. The gang chases Della through the woods. Yeah the woods. She's in the Inner city one minute and five minutes later she is in the woods? Okay.

This movie was horrible! We're supposed to buy Della as being smart but she does the dumbest things. Instead of using every opportunity to get away from the four dummies, she sits around and listens in on their extremely loud conversations. She takes time to reminisce about her kids, even pees, anything instead of getting her butt outta dodge! The smart thing for Della to have done would have been to hide somewhere and wait for daylight. It was the woods! No way they'd find her but no, she runs around in the woods as loud as she can. What was so pitiful was how it did not matter how long Della took off before the dummies found out she was gone, she always ended up in their sights. And it's hard to believe that Della couldn't get away from the idiots seeing how Chuckie can light up the entire woods with his flashlight and he yells her name every two minutes. Obviously Della is dumber than we think because she gets warning after warning that the dummies are close to her, yet never gets away.

The beginning was boring. The middle was horrid and the end makes you wanna contemplate the cast's murder or your own suicide. We have to sit through a very bad monologue by Chuckie (I assume to show us his good side, as if we care). Chuckie decides to use his charms to persuade Della to come out of hiding. Oh yes that's the big thing! Instead of Della getting her butt out of the woods while Chuckie's talking, she's sitting behind a tree trunk, listening! She's listening instead of using this as a time to get away. After Chuckie's hour-long speech, he comes onto Della and by our disgust, Della decides to seduce Chuckie and from that point on I'm convinced this movie was a comedy the entire time. It's so unbelievable with Della and Chuckie that you wonder if the film is actually trying to overlook the fact that Basinger is thirty years older than Haas and old enough to be his mother. Yet while they are kissing and fondling, it's like the filmmakers want us to forget how it's so unbelievable that these two would go down this route. It didn't make any sense. The ending alone delivered more laughs than a Saturday Night Live episode. After that you spend your time pulling out your toenails with pliers, hoping it ends soon and finally it does.

I'd give it five stars if it were a comedy. Unfortunately it wasn't."