Dangerous Methods

source: Dangerous Methods

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There was good potential in the idea of presenting the famous method acting techniques, including the often self-indulgent approaches taken by actors to get "into" their characters. On the surface, the film demonstrated an actor getting so deeply "immersed" that he lost touch with reality. But the filmmakers were never interested in exploring genuine method acting. Rather, the film degenerated into a Stephen King wannabe horror movie. By the end, the violence was excessive almost to the point of inducing nausea. The premise that Lacy Johnson would agree to reside in a secluded mountain cabin with the actor Desmond Gage was far-fetched to begin with. But it was beyond the pale to think that she would ever be attracted to this repellent and dirty old man. The screenplay and the film's concept were not do-able. Sadly, this film was unsuccessful in every respect.

This is so bad it is actually fun. An assistant gets a dream job working for a method actor that is nuts. He admits he is gay yet she falls for him anyway and he pretends nothing has happened between them only to sleep with him AGAIN. A couple of murders happen along the way. I hope there is a follow up movie called THE MEISNER MURDERS! Only actors will probably get this!

What I've learned from all the LIFETIME movies released over the past two years is that writers/producers can have excellent movie ideas, but a poor way of executing it. This one is no exception. Basically the plot centers around this young woman named Lacey who's offered a job to live in isolation with a "method actor". This had so much potential to be good, but they hardly even tried with the story. All the positive reviews here were obviously written by the people who've worked on the film, to make it look like a good, recommendable movie. This is a common tactic among filmmakers, and it's so despicable. Basically tricking the people reading the reviews into thinking it's a great movie, only to be utterly disappointed at the unfinished, sloppy ending. The producers of The (Virgin) Sinners (2021) and You Can Never Go Home Again (2022), also did this. Also if you visit the reviewer's profile, you can see that they've written a review for a movie produced and directed by the same people. So they couldn't have made it more obvious. I like watching Nicky Whelan on LMN. It's a shame her character is literally only in the beginning and end of the movie. She makes a brief appearance at the start, and then we don't see her again until the hospital scene. The ending left me with a lot of questions. Lacy stabs Desmond with a knife and then the police shoot her. Next scene is her in a hospital room in a coma while Sharon sits by her side. A bottle of pills are found, and it is revealed shortly afterwards that Desmond had schizophrenia and was on medication for it. Sharon then says I'm sorry to a comatose Lacy as she walks away from the hospital room. Really?? That was it?? I've seen a lot of other Lifetime movies with disappointing endings but this one takes the cake! One last note: I'm not really an animal person, but I really hate it when the bad guy kills the protagonists pets. Even if it doesn't make a difference to the story!

Weird, weak, waste of time. Luckily it was 4am when I watched this, so no productivity lots, just time. I agree with a previous review that the music backing track it too loud, making actual dialogue difficult to hear. An "isolated cabin" yet we easily see truck and car headlights on the very nearby road in a night scene. Awkward to poor acting on pretty much everyone's part. Casting of supports actors was hokie, especially the Police and Doctor. Rachelle Brooke Smith's acting was similarly poor; especially her nervousness and crying scenes, but at least she's very nice to look at. Weak, unsatisfying ending.

Well casted! Story line unexpected. However way to violent movie (blood) for the lifetime network. The ending was wrong. Would be better fit for another network.

A Hollywood assistant becomes the assistant to a whacked out actor who I'm thinking, is schizophrenic. That's the rub to 2022's Dangerous Methods. Pay attention to the word methods, or should I say Method (as in acting). Released this month and featuring title cards as if it were The Shining (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.), Dangerous Methods reveals from the beginning that the lead (Christopher Showerman as Desmond Gage) is loony tunes right off the bat. The assistant to him (if you can call her that) doesn't do much except fawn over him and his A-list status. She must really need the job. I mean anyone else with half a frame of reference would have left the situation on day one. But wait, there'd be no movie. And you the viewer wouldn't be plodded along hopelessly wondering where the heck "Methods" is going. Director Humberto Rosa wants to build tension but doesn't seem to reach it. The actors are game but their milk-and-water scenes are kind of stuck in neutral. On the flip side, why would the Hollywood industry even attempt to keep an unstable trouper like Gage on the payroll (he almost strangled someone on set for gosh sake)? And why would Gage's assistant (Lacy Johnson played by Rachele Brooke Smith) be so befuddled as to be seduced by him? I mean is Lifetime (the film's distributor) trying to say that Hollywood is "Hollyweird? It certainly appears so. "Freaking actors". All in all, I didn't hate Dangerous Methods but I thought it was rather restrained for what it could've been. The unhappy ending amps things up a bit but at the same time, it also felt like a dangling loose end. The fates of everyone involved (the assistant, the assistant's father, the cuckoo thespian) seemed arbitrary at best. Dangerous Methods isn't quite "The Most Dangerous Game".

It is always a sad task to review a film that could have been good because it had good writing, but was not properly executed by the director and the actors. Dangerous Methods is one of those unfortunate films. The storyline is very interesting, but the actors deliver their lines in an unconvincing manner, and the director does nothing to fix that problem. The poor acting may be due to inexperience on the part of most of the cast, or it may be partially due to poor directing. Regardless, the end result is unsatisfying and not believable. At least the writers of this tale have a bright future in the film industy.

Maybe it would be more interesting if not for this loud fricking background music, so loud I hardly could hare what they were saying or rather, compared to unnecessary and annoying music, whispering. Don't they have a sound editor?