Pun Salad

Sometimes we watch movies just because Mrs. Salad sees them at Blockbuster and likes the look of actors on the DVD box. Occasionally this works out, other times we get stuck with utter turkeys like this.

This is a deservedly-straight-to-DVD movie; at some point in its past it was titled Like Minds, and that's the title that appears at IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes. The new title, Murderous Intent, is breathtakingly generic, probably generated by the same Adjective-Noun software that gave us Basic Instinct, Lethal Weapon, Fatal Attraction, etc.

It's about a police psychologist, played by Toni Colette, tasked with interviewing a sullen kid about the death of his classmate. The tale is told with a lot of flashbacks, showing the relationships between the kid and his equally obnoxious and creepy buddies. There's a thick layer of pretentiousness overlaying the whole thing. Dialog meant to be cleverly elliptical is just stupid. Shots seem to go on way longer than they need to. The "shocking twist" at the end can be seen coming from the beginning of the movie.

They probably could have made a mediocre hour episode of Law & Order out of the premise. Come to think, they probably have.