While She Was Out DVD Review
While She Was Out DVD Review
While she was out, she should have written a different script
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[This review contains many spoilers.]
Imagine a Lifetime revenge-themed movie of the week intercut with a few death scenes from the cutting room floor of a Final Destination flick, and you'll only have some small idea of how While She Was Out plays. And if you know what's good for you, you'll just let me take the bullet on this one.
Kim Basinger, who also exec-produced (obviously in hopes of showcasing her Oscar-winning acting talent, as she is in every painful scene), plays mousy Della, a wealthy suburban housewife who has it all: the latest wheels, the white picket, a perfect pair of adorable kiddies, and of course, a rotten, abusive, drunken bastard for a husband.
It's Christmas Eve, and when Kenneth (Craig Sheffer) comes stumbling home, he's in a rage — screaming and yelling at Della for no apparent reason, he twists her arm behind her back and she begs him, in monotone, to please not break it "again". He lets her go, and after she tucks her cute little tots safely to sleep, she mutters to Kenneth that she's out of wrapping paper and heads for the local mall.
The parking lot is a madhouse. After circling several times, only to find her spot swiped, or worse still someone hogging two spaces, Della finally lands a place and makes her way to the shopping center. She pauses to leave a note on the windshield of the driver's beater parked over the painted line ("Hey, Jerk: 2 parking spaces? How selfish can you be?" — Ah, too bad… the perfect opportunity to use the words 'little pig' after 'selfish' wasted!). Once inside the mall, a bunch of things happen, which never, ever pay off. (My only guess is that these little indignities she suffers fuel the rage she will be needing later on… straws, camel's back?)
Daze-eyed Della gets her wrapping paper just as the mall is closing, and while there is a stampede for the exit doors, when first time writer-director Susan Montford shows us the parking lot, it's already nearly vacated. Wow, those are some fast getaway drivers! Basically the only vehicles left are Della's, and… the space-hog "jerk."
Who to cast as this angry menace… Vinnie Jones? Danny Trejo? Giovanni Ribisi? Nope. It's Lukas Haas. And his name is Chuckie. Yikes! But don't worry: this ersatz Baby-Face Nelson has a politically correct posse with all the major races represented by Asian Vingh (Leonard Wu), Latino Tomás (Luis Chávez), and African American (helpfully wearing a tee-shirt with lettering identifying himself as such) Huey (Jamie Starr).
The one and only guard at the huge multiplex mall is shot in cold blood by the gang, and Della dashes — only to be pursued by the baddies, and quickly caught in a deserted construction site which borders the woods. A perfect place for a pursuit, panic, and finally, payback.
All the while, Della is carrying a bright red toolbox with her, which she grabbed from the back of her truck before fleeing the scene. She did not, of course, take her purse, cell phone, or driver's license. All of which the mugging, wisecracking gang find and taunt her with. So mean! What a bunch of tools.
They split up to find her, conveniently allowing Della to pick them off one-by-one in the most gruesome of manners: even the Almighty washes His hands of her at this point — which is illustrated when Della, trying to hide from what's left of her pursuers, sloshes noisily through a running stream and yells aloud, "Where are you, God? Where are you?" (Personally, I wanted to know where Guillermo was. Guillermo del Toro, I mean… he put his name as exec producer on this howler. He's one of, oh, 50 or so. The opening credits are mind-boggling!)
The pacing is so poor in While She Was Out, you get no sense of time. For instance, in the beginning when Kenneth gets home from the office, he is totally sloshed. So unless he works at a brewery, he must have been at a bar first. It would be at the earliest 9 p.m., so when Della gets to the mall on Christmas Eve, it's got to be about 9:30 or 10. Most malls would have already been closed, but this one is packed. And Della wastes a lot of time getting hot tea, reminiscing with a friend she hasn't seen since college, window shopping, reinventing the wheel, building a better mousetrap, etc. It must be about midnight by the time the guard is shot by the gang, and it seems as though a few hours would have passed during her ordeal in the woods. But then after she escapes and she is driving by the scene of the crime, it looks as though the cops have just arrived at the mall. Della just drives by. Shortly after, her car breaks down and she has to walk the rest of the way home (while a cappella singing "I'll be home for Christmas" — how ironic! Nah. It's just idiotic), but the nighttime sky looks exactly as it did when she left at what I presume to be around 9 p.m.
Oh, well. Who cares about the timeline when I've lost an hour and half of my life on this movie which I can never, ever get back. Consider yourself warned. And your toolbox? Don't leave home without it.
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson