Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

nzpedals It's a real story, and I know who the characters are immediately. But the best part is the superb acting by Kathy Baker. This is her movie from start to finish. Sure, the others, (Weller, Smitrovich ) are good, but nothing in comparison to Baker.Her voice, the tone, the pauses, the eyes, the gestures, combine to tell the exact emotion, in an emotion-packed story. There is worry, doubt, fear, a tiny bit of joy - it's all there, compassion too. Not much to laugh about, in fact nothing at all, but that's not necessary in such a gripping story.Set in small-town USA in the forties, where the mill is supposedly short of able-bodied men. Flashbacks tell of the background as the horrible foreman acquires a wife from the distraught and stupid son of another horrible person who had locked his wife in a share-croppers shack for two years.As he is led away after being caught, he shouts "She's my wife, she belongs to me", and that seems to be the attitude of his son Sheb (John Glover) who later becomes a Baptist minister and proclaims the same horrible code. Maggie (Kathy Baker) is his sister. Sheb callously gives her to Pink Gresham, the Parrish Mill foreman. Pink cheats on his workers - deducting $5 *more* from their pay packet than usual (that would be a huge amount in today's money), but the workers are powerless to complain. Pink cheats on his wife too, spending the night with cute Sara (rather oddly, the credits say "Sarah's father"? (Danny Nelson) who doesn't say a word. His face says it all - disapproval, but powerless to interfere.Someone else that Pink has hurt is Baston Morris, (Weller) with whom Pink had stayed for a week whilst looking for workers to replace men who have been drafted or enlisted in the war. Pink buys gifts for the Morris children and especially their mother (another actor who doesn't say a word). The wife says (in a letter that Baston finds) that she will leave Baston and go to live with Pink. Needless to say, that upsets Morris so much that he comes after Pink. And gets him.When Morris shows up at the Gresham house, on the other side of the river with no road access, Maggie is effectively held hostage. She tries to get help from a neighbor, but fails. To add to the fear and danger, there are a pack of wild dogs in the area. Morris deals to them and threatens to do the same to Maggie unless she agrees to help him escape.There are a couple of very short scenes, half a second long, that need to be noticed and their relevance understood. That might take a second or third viewing of the DVD, well worth it. The neighbor's young son has seen a critical event between Maggie and Morris. That leads to the arrival of the Sheriff, and the inevitable conclusion.Great writing, lots of memorable lines, great direction and production. My only complaint might be the title, OK, there is a bit of killing, but that's not the main story, so perhaps "Hostage Affair" might have been better.

Woodyanders 1943. Evil and unscrupulous mill foreman Pink Gresham (well played to the despicable hilt by Bill Smitrovich) gets murdered in a small backwoods town in rural Virginia. Gresham's mousy widow Maggie (a solid and sympathetic portrayal by Kathy Baker) gets paid a visit by mysterious drifter Baston Morris (a fine performance by Peter Weller), who openly admits that he murdered Gresham and seeks refuge in Maggie's home.Writer/director David Saperstein delivers a strong and flavorsome evocation of the 1940's period setting as well as an equally potent and unnerving sense of isolation and vulnerability, with the remote island location that's being terrorized by a pack of wild dogs coming across as especially well-realized. Baker and Weller do stand-out work in the leads, with sturdy support from the always dependable John Glover as meddlesome local minister Sheb Sheppard. Both John Barry's moody score and the handsome cinematography by Dominique Chapuis are up to par. However, the often sluggish pacing and frequently meandering narrative make this one a bit of a rough slog to get through at times. Those flaws aside, this film overall still sizes up as a pretty engrossing and effective outing.

classicsoncall Call me crazy, but I just don't think it's EVER a good idea to sleep with an ax-murderer. Of course, Maggie Gresham didn't know that at the time, but she DID know the soon to be revealed maniac killed her own husband, lout that he was. I'd never be so cold as to say the guy deserved it, but he was asking for trouble right from the opening scene.To be fair, Baston Morris (Peter Weller) did keep you guessing with his soft spoken demeanor and repeated promises not to hurt Maggie. You just had to overlook the ax in the headboard that one time he got his back up. How he figured to replace his dead family with a live one is how this story plays out, but there are red flags all over the place if you're paying attention.The bit with the wild dogs roaming the Gresham island was effective for an additional horror component, and now that I think about it, why did the residents let that go on for so long? But it did set up that perfectly grisly ending, even though we don't get to see it. Quite honestly, there aren't any redeeming characters in this flick unless you count the two absent Gresham children, who by the end of the film still didn't know their Dad was a goner.

Hitchcoc I got some of the same feelings that I received from watching "Cold Mountain." There is an overriding threat throughout. People don't trust because there are people who usurp authority and control others, even though they have no real right to. Mr. Grisham is about as despicable as a man can be. He uses people, capitalizing on their poverty, uses women, and mistreats his family. Eventually he gets to pay for that. But, coming into the picture, is an enigmatic man who is seeking revenge. He claims that Grisham killed his wife and family. He admits that he killed Grisham in retaliation. This is where things get dicey. I will say no more about the plot. The acting is bleak. The setting is a morass of trees and vines, a river with no escape, and a pack of dogs that threatens the characters at every turn. Threre is bitterness from the black family that is, of course, mistreated and abused. There is the woman who has had to depend on a bastard of a husband, not knowing what to do and who to trust. She is victimized by her husband's reputation and his evil. This movie really captures a time period and a group of Virginians during an unhappy time in our history. It is gut wrenching and believable. A bit of a diamond in the rough.