Case 39 review

It's interesting coming off a weekend with terrific pieces of work like "The Social Network" and "Let Me In" and heading straight back into shitsville with "Case 39". Lets just say after the first twenty or so minutes you can tell why the film was held back from release for so long. Its almost a complete mess. Actually something I hate more about it is the fact that it's fully comprehend-able, just really fucking stupid and extremely dated.

Basically Renee Zellweger plays Emily, a social worker that believes a young girl is being abused and wants her boss to try and get her pulled from the home. Of course the higher ups are almost completely no help so Emily gives the girl her home number and tries to connect with her so that she'll get that important late night call about the parents trying to "send her to hell". Well it came pretty soon and with the help of her cop friend (played by Ian McShane), they break in, subdue the parents and save the girl from being burned alive in an oven. Emily then drops her case and takes her into her home until another worker can find her a new home. That's when the stuff starts happening. And when I say stuff... well that's exactly what I mean.

"Case 39" isn't a slow burn horror, thriller; it's just lazy. The first half cruises along without much intensity, intrigue or emotion. The second half is almost as empty, but has dull and uninspired devil movie sequences inserted. It's all just random stuff that would've been lame back in the heyday of horror movies. Jodelle Ferland ('Silent Hill', 'Tideland' and 'Twilight: Eclipse") plays the little girl and shoots for the moon trying seem evil and menacing. Sadly none of it works. Bradley Cooper basically has an extended cameo type role before he's dispensed in a prolonged, ridiculous and generally stupid fashion. In fact just how he dies is something up for debate... you know if anybody really cared to debate about it.

Zellweger is just as boring and generally flat as she usually is when she's not aiming at another Oscar nod. When things do heat up for her character she lacks the strength (or care) to really send home the whole panicking or terrifying feeling. When dealing with the other adult characters she's simply bland and dull. The horror aspects are straight from the early 2000's and seem like lamer pieces from stuff like "Darkness Falls", "The Ring Two" and "Boogeyman". So basically it's in the vein of already really shitty horror movies. There is no reason to seek out "Case 39" with so many really fun and impressive movies out right now. This is something that will hit DVD and probably within a couple of months be tossed into the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. If it's not busy being a boring thriller then it's slowly trying to just be a piss poor supernatural movie. Seriously, this is a massive waste of time and money.