The Gift (2015)

A couple, a stalker and a dog walk into a bar. The stalker endlessly bugs the couple. The couple gets mad and freaks out the stalker. The stalker retaliates and blames the couple for his misgivings. End of story. Thanks for reading my review of The Gift starring Jason Bateman.

...Just kidding.

*Be warned...there are spoilers!

The story begins--like most B-movie horror films as of late begin--with a married couple moving into a new house. Simon (played by a humorless Jason Bateman) and Robyn Callum (Rebecca Hall) seem to have everything going for them and even though the house isn't exactly what they expect, they soon change it around and make it to their liking. Fair enough. What better way to get the interior you want than go to town and check out all the expensive stores? As Simon and Robyn go shopping, this strange dude (played by Joel Edgerton) is peeking through the window and eventually enters. What is this guy's story? Well, with no time to waste, he quickly comes up to Simon and asks if he remembers him from school. He is known as Gordo. After a minute to piece together who this dude is, Simon remembers and tells him that he's in a rush to get home but for him to call him so they can catch up.

A happy couple getting letters from a anti-social creep

The next day, Simon is off to work and Robyn is left at home to work on her own business. This is getting so generic that myself and the audience are waiting for the shit to go down. After coming back from a morning run, she notices a package on her front door. It's a bottle of wine with a note on it. Putting it on the table, she gets in the house and grabs a sip of Gatorade, when all of a sudden this dude comes walking up the driveway. It's Gordo. How he finds out where they live I have no idea, the writers felt that wasn't important, I guess. This guy is indeed a creeper. Now that he's there, she invites him in the house for a tour of their new place. Noticing that the wine was from Gordo, she assumes that Simon told him to surprise her. He has no idea what she's talking about and this gives her pause, but she moves on and continues the unexpected tour. When going down a hallway, she notices in the corner of her eye that he enters the room for their future child, if they ever have one. Not saying a word, he looks at the toys and picks them up. It's as if he has a flashback from a horrible experience in his past. Robyn tells him that Simon has a fear of monkey's and offers him to take home the monkey toy if he wants. He looks at the toy and then puts it back; more on that a bit later. Suddenly having to leave, Gordo asks her to let Simon know that he stopped by.

Several days go by and each day the couple comes back, there is a new present on their front door. First, it's a bottle of wine; then it's fish food for koi fish. Every day is something new. Now, this is the part of the story that peaks my interest. So, the story uses the "couple entering a new home" routine, check, then the story begins to get subtly freaky, check. How far is this going to go and will it get worse? I'm curious to find out. Then, Robyn asks Gordo to come by for dinner. He accepts.

AWKWARD TIME! As they all sit around the table, Gordo is just talking and talking about how he is proud of Simon and for their new place. "I'm very happy for you, Simon." He says this throughout the movie and it becomes to be a bit tedious. We, as an audience, get it! He's happy for him. Let's move on. Now, Simon is not trying to be rude but he's just about had enough with this creepy guy whom he hardly remembers from high school. Now it's time for Simon to ask Gordo what's up with him. We only get one simple answer, "Oh, I was in the military." That's it...no more, no less. There is obviously something more to this guy than meets the eye.

Gordo being a creep-o

Simon finds something a bit off about Gordo

Eventually Gordo asks for Simon and wife to come to his place. Now, this is a nice, gated, high end place with a bunch of bird statues in the living room. This is perhaps the best part of the entire movie...if there is one. Gordo says he has an important phone call and leaves. Finding it to be awkward, Simon decides to confront Gordo when he returns. When Gordo comes back, Simon asks Robyn to wait in the car so he can clear things up. Gordo really wants to get in the pants of Robyn and Simon can clearly see that. He always shows up in the morning when Simon is at work, yet he always asks for Simon. Now, being an average person, you should be able to put two and two together and think, Hmmm...maybe I should come back when he's back from work? No, he obviously wants something else. What is up with Gordo? Gordo confesses and says this house isn't really his and it belongs to his ex wife who left him. Simon replies and thanks him for being honest about his past, but wants him to leave them the fuck alone and not to bother them again until he can get his own life together. Getting in the car, they are about to leave when the gate doesn't open. Honking and honking, Gordo opens the gate just as Simon threatens to come back in the house and beat him up. The gate opens and the next day we never hear from Simon again...or so we think.

Days go by and we don't hear from Sir Creeper. This is where the movies slows down for me. I confess, I fell asleep at some parts of the movie so maybe I missed some crucial parts, but I just didn't care. I wanted to see where this movie was going and sofar it was going nowhere. Robyn goes around town looking for old classmates of Simon and she finally comes across someone who had said that Gordo was bullied and tormented by Simon and is practically a loner because of it. The movie seems to take an hour for her to search files and files and ask around about this guy. Why do we care? Confronting Simon about it, he gets furious and tells her to drop the subject.

The next day, she gets back from her run and takes a sip of her drink. Once there, she hears noises and then looks around. All of a sudden she faints. Before she falls unconscious, you hear this heart thumping. Now, I assume it was the filmmakers attempt to bring suspense to the audience. This is used during many movies, especially when something is about to pop up and spook us. In this case, we see her grabbing her chest. I totally think she dies and I find that to be a bit interesting and makes me care for the character just a bit more than before. The scene changes and then she wakes up--not in a hospital bed--but in her own house. What the heck happened? Did she have some kind of a heart defect?

In what we are to assume several months go by, she is fully pregnant and is due soon. Simon has a bunch of co-workers over celebrating his new promotion when we hear gunshots outside. Could it be Gordo back with a vengeance? I mean, Simon was the one who indeed bullied him all those years ago. In fact, no, it's an employee for the company that lost his job due to something Simon pulled and he threatens to kill him for it. Once Simon admits he did fraud, he loses his job and is out of work. Meanwhile, Robyn is sent to the hospital. A day before birth, Gordo pops up with flowers and wants to congratulate her. Simon is there for the birth of the child, and there is nothing but smiles. While Robyn is still in the hospital, Simon heads home and notices there are several packages outside and a CD that says "Play Me". He plays it and it is a recording of their conversation while in Gordo's place a few night ago with Simon making fun of him and calling him Gordo the Weirdo. His place was wired. Opening the other envelope, there's a DVD that says "Watch Me". He puts it in, and see's a man with a money mask on. Then, the camera pans revealing Robyn unconscious on the floor. It is discovered that he spikes her drink and makes her pass out. Gordo is filming himself raping Robyn. So, the baby being born is not Simon's kid, but in fact Gordo's. This was the ultimate revenge on someone who was tormented by someone. The films ends with Simon crying and knowing that this new child is indeed Gordo's. The End.

Now, after writing this blog, I'm surprised how straightforward it is and I don't hate this film as much as I did...but I still will not see it again. I have no intention to and must say that I cannot recommend it to anyone. It's nice to see that Bateman took on a more serious roll, but he just played too much of a major asshole and unlikable character. It tests his range, but I just don't see him as someone that can pull off a role with this. His humor is a bit deadpan so he works great in comedies, but in a mystery/thriller, he just comes off as an arrogant prick that I don't really care for; and he's the protagonist of the film! After what he did with Gordo and the way he treats his wife is just a sign of someone reflecting their problems on others and not wanting to face their problems (or fears). The middle of the movie just drags and puts us in pointless mystery about this guy and we barely see him. The film shines when Gordo is actually in the picture. During the middle he isn't there and we are just following this wife around town asking question after question and I just get a bit tired of it. For it being just an hour and forty five minutes including trailers, it seemed to be as long as The Godfather Part II...only BAD. This movie is like a serious, thriller version of What About Bob? Only poorly done.

I say skip this film and save your money. Just wait a few months and it will be on Netflix. But that is just my opinion. Let me know in the comments below of your thoughts and what you thought of the film. Thanks for reading!

I give it ** out of ***** AND THAT'S BEING GENEROUS.