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Overall Rating : 4.5/10
Directed By : Charles T. Kanganis
Angus Macfadyen (SAW III)
Willa Ford
Robert Moloney
Ron Seymour
Supplied By : Sony Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : April. 15, 2008
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| PLOT Claire Dennison is a beautiful, sensuous woman, desperate to arouse her husband's desires. She devises a fantasy role-play game hoping to put the spark back into their marriage. She sets the scene and her husband takes the bait...or does he? So consumed with desire the passion enthralls her, but it's not long before Claire realizes she's playing a dangerous game of seduction with someone so familiar, yet completely unknown. Desperate to end the affair she tells the stranger the game is over, but for him it's just begun. | ||||
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| THE REVIEW In IMPULSE, we meet a young advertising agent working in the fashion industry named Claire Dennison. Claire, who is married to an older psychologist named Jonathan, is trying with her all, to make their marriage work, in between her traveling and Jonathan's psychology work. Claire travels the world from New York all the way to Paris while Jonathan works and teaches at the local hospital, and with the two very different careers and their obvious age difference, keeping everything in tact isn't as easy as it sounds for the two of them. This is when a friend of Claire's suggests that the two partners role play, and take new identities while in the act of making love, as a possible means of spicing up their relationship. When she goes home that night, she shows up at her door, in character hoping that it may entice Jonathan to participate, but this too fails. After it is all said and done, Claire continues on with her next business trip alone, or so she thought. One night while eating dinner alone, much to her surprise, in walks Jonathan, with a slightly different look and demeanor. For Claire this only could mean one thing, that Jonathan has met up with her for a night of role-playing. After a night of steamy sex, Claire is convinced that she and Jonathan are now on the same page. After this, would follow another night of role playing when Claire travels to New York on business, and the night would deliver the same satisfying results as the last - but the same morning Claire's life would go down crumbling, when she is utterly shock. It is the morning after another steamy session, that she receives a phone call....from guess who?......Jonathan! If Jonathan is on the other end of the phone, than who is the man lying beside her in bed. It is a man by the name of Simon Phillips, a man who happens to be a dead ringer for her husband. Shocked and embarrassed by her mistake, she tries to kindly write Simon off, but Simon, already gotten "acquainted" with Claire doesn't exactly want to let her go and becomes obsessed with her and her life. He begins to follow her and her actions rather closely, and even tries to get on the good side of Jonathan while posing as a potential patient. To sum it up, the "cat-and mouse" game continues over time, and it's apparent that Simon will stop at nothing to get what he desires. You know them, you are intrigued and curious about them if you are a young teenage male with cable Television. Of course, I could only be talking about just one thing.....the erotic films that cover the airwaves of late night cable TV. Most of the time, such films like these present an erotic mystery, with lots of gratuitous nudity taking up most of their runtime - and lets face it, if you're a young guy, they're all good to go. IMPULSE reminds me of these films as it seems it's overall purpose is to be sexy and erotic, with a feel and visuals that just scream sex. IMPULSE does in fact have a well developed plot, one that is interesting, but not so much original. Some of the films in which IMPULSE takes it's plotline cues from are films such as THE SEDUCTION, John Carpenter's made for TV movie SOMEONE'S WATCHING ME! and Brian DePalma's DRESSED TO KILL, 2 of which(THE SEDUCTION and SOMEONE'S WATCHING ME!), center around a female character in a high profile occupation, much like IMPULSE here. When you happen to get past of the subject of sex, IMPULSE, honestly does have a surprisingly good story with many twists and turns. At first the film seems really cookie cutter and very predictable, but just when you think you know it all, it takes one of those said turns, and in the end has you watching and wondering how it's going to end - you know that there are only a few ways it could end - but which one would it choose? On the acting front, we have singer turned actress(in her first major role), Willa Ford as Claire. Ford does really well here, and surpasses all of my expectations that I had for her...at first glace it's the common reaction of "Oh just another singer trying to act", but as I said her performance here is pretty decent. She also offers up plenty of nudity here, and I must confess that this did not hurt her cause at all, as her body is definitely a thing of beauty! Prior to this film, I had only seen Actor Angus Macfadyen in SAW III, and honestly I wasn't that impressed with his performance, but it could've just been the film itself, which was pale when compared to the other SAW films. Here, you get double dose of Macfadyen in dual roles as both Jonathan and Simon. Each of them different, Simon the more quiet and sure of himself, while Simon is the more eccentric and self conscious. Macfadyen does a great job of separating the two different characters and their personalities, and it's often that you forget that it's the same guy playing both roles, it was good to watch. In the end, IMPULSE is a little more than just another sexually charged erotic film, it has a somewhat interesting story that is if not anything else a decent little thriller that is at least worth seeing once. |
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| GORE
METER 3/10 The score consists of rather light and suspenseful scoring, with the occasional dace track. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 1/10 Just a few gunshot wounds and a bruised face and body, nothing major. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM I'm almost afraid to admit that I kind of enjoyed this, as it is in fact, what seems to be a "Chick aimed" Thriller, but I did. No matter how much I wanted to dismiss this one, the story at least had my attention and kept me watching. For the sake of Willa Ford's beautiful nude body in this film, I can't help but to tack on another half point to the film's overall rating. |
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