Premise: A woman with psychic powers living in a small town finds herself at the center of a murder investigation when her predictions turn out to be too correct.
Like most people, I mainly only know of this as the movie that Katie Holmes gets naked in, as discussed by Goldstein and Rosenberg in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. It turns out, there's a whole other 1h50m of the movie to discuss.
It's crazy how many names are attached to this movie. It's got Cate Blanchett, Greg Kinnear, and Hilary Swank only a couple years removed from Oscar nominations or wins. In 2000, Giovanni Ribisi was able to lead movies. Katie Holmes was in peak Dawson's Creek fame, attempting to transition to grown-up roles. There's Keanu Reeves, right after The Matrix. Even the list of character actors is impressive: Kim Dickens, Gary Cole, J.K. Simmons.
Frankly, I didn't realize people wanted to work with Sam Rami so badly in 2000. He was still mostly the Evil Dead guy at that time. Sure, The Quick and the Dead was decently received and A Simple Plan got a couple Oscar nominations. I would think he'd need Spider-Man to pull this sort of cast though. Visually this does make sense as a Sam Rami movie even though I doubt I'd think of him if I didn't realize it.
What struck me about The Gift is how thoroughly unremarkable it is. It feels like a couple trends coming to a head. There are the 90s trends of In the Garden of Good and Evil/Eve's Bayou Southern mysticism and the Ashley Judd crime thrillers. While I know I haven't seen this movie, it felt like a movie I'd seen on TNT on a Tuesday afternoon in 2001. It's a pretty predictable movie. Even though it's an original story based on powers Billy Bob Thornton says his mom had, it sure feels like an airport thriller novel adaptation. It hits all the beats it's supposed to. The cast is way overqualified. It helps me understand a Harold and Kumar reference. So, it meets all the basic requirements of a watchable movie and little more.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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