Pun Salad

Sometimes we get movies for no better reason than: Mrs. Salad likes Pierce Brosnan. But if a movie goes direct to basic cable (TNT in this case) and to DVD a few weeks later, there's almost always a pretty good reason.

Abby and Neil are a seemingly happy, successful yuppie couple with an adorable daughter, Sophie. Eventually—it takes a real long time for this movie to get going—Pierce Brosnan shows up to terrorize the couple, putting them through an array of demeaning demands and tasks. His motive is unclear, only revealed at the end of the movie.

There's a lot of shouting, not much acting.

The movie's original title is Butterfly on a Wheel, a somewhat obscure reference to Alexander Pope's poetic line: "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?", meaning, as Wikipedia says, why would anyone put so much time and effort into achieving a trivial result? That's a very appropriate title; probably it was changed so that people wouldn't ask the same question about the movie, or its plot.

By the way: hubby Neil is played by Gerard Butler, who also played King Leonidas in 300. Butler must be a great actor, because Leonidas is a total testosterone-soaked he-man, and Neil is a wimpy and effete loser.