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True story. I was at dinner a few weeks ago with some friends, and one gentleman mentioned that he was looking forward to a new movie since it starred Giovanni Ribisi and Keanu Reeves. After almost spitting out my drink, I composed myself and agreeably remarked that I, too, was looking forward to the same movie. I left the troubling mention of Ribisi and Reeves alone, and instead offered that director Sam Raimi (Simple Plan,  Evil Dead) and actors Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank, and Greg Kinnear were what had me interested. What is this movie, filled with both promise and peril? The Gift, which opens this Friday.

Set in the foggy swamp bottom of Brixton, Georgia, the movie stars Blanchett (Elizabeth) as Annie Wilson, a single mom with three boys who cries at night for her dead husband. This being a Sam Raimi thriller, we can guess that her husband's not going to be the only stiff before this movie's through.

At first, though, it's not clear who the unlucky victim will be. Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry) staggers into Annie's humble abode early on, sporting awful-looking black eyes courtesy of her husband Donnie (Keanu Reeves); but Ribisi, continuing his string of unstable young man roles (The Boiler Room), drives around town agitated about some blue diamond, and the audience starts wondering if he might be the first to go. Then there's local slut Jessica King (Katie Holmes, Wonder Boys) whose life seems to be perfect--her daddy's super rich, and she's marrying nice guy Greg Kinnear--but Annie's having visions of Jessica floating face first in a nearby river. And Annie herself has to deal with the menace that is Keanu Reeves; we know he's bad news when he sneaks into her house and spells 'Satan' on her bed with playing cards.

Why 'Satan' and why playing cards? Well, they're not actually playing cards. You see, Annie's a fortune teller, and she uses some kind of tarot cards to predict people's futures. She's so good that she told Swank's character her husband is dangerous, a fact Donnie didn't take too kindly to. Being a good Christian man (ignore those beatings behind the curtain), he tends to frown on any sort of voodoo, so he expresses his displeasure with all the subtlety we've come to expect from Keanu. 

Unfortunately, that tendency (lack of subtlety, that is) isn't peculiar to Reeves. Most of the characters in The Gift are painted with a pretty broad brush. The nice ones are nice, the sexy ones are sexy (yes, Katie Holmes takes off most of her clothes, as the Internet rumors prophesied), the mean ones are mean, and the unstable guys only get weirder as the movie goes on. The film's setting is equally obvious, as what feels like the Louisiana bayou is the backdrop for rain-soaked nights and flashes of lightning that suddenly illuminate our potential villains.

You have to give Sam Raimi credit, though. While this movie has none of the power of his last film, A Simple Plan, he knows how to get his audience on the edge of its collective seat. Creepy music, things that go bump in the night, and dripping water from a bathtub--no matter how many times we've seen 'em, they still get the heart racing. As my friend Garth pointed out, The Gift is one of those movies where a character who's backing up without looking will inevitably be scared out of her mind, and the person we least expect will soon become the prime suspect. But sometimes those sort of thrills, mundane as they are, can still make for an enjoyable 112 minutes. While the acting and directing talent feels somewhat misused, if you're in the mood for cheap thrills, this horse is worth looking into. Just not too closely. 

J. Robert Parks 1/15/2001