No Good Deed
As Chris Rock said, there’s no question that Hollywood has an issue with representation, so when a movie like No Good Deed wastes the time and considerable talents of actors like Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson you can’t help but feel robbed. It makes you wonder what these actors could be doing if Hollywood suits opened their minds a little rather than leaving Elba and Henson afloat on an island of plot holes and clichés masquerading as an intense and intimate thriller, a match of wits between two equal foes. It turns out though there was only half a wit between them.
Oh, where to begin? How about the idea that an intelligent woman would let a complete stranger in her home, even if he does look like Idris Elba? How about the fact that Henson’s husband played by Henry Simmons couldn’t have been played as less interested in being a husband and a father if they tried? How about the way this movie unfolds on a dark and stormy night, like a campfire story, or a Scooby Doo episode? But most egregious is what No Good Deed tries to pass off as a twist, a turn of the plot so ludicrous and obvious that the theater manager had might as well come out before the show and told it to the audience.
This isn’t the first time that Elba’s been wasted in Lifetime Movie of the Week-level schlock. He was the good guy hit on by psycho secretary Ali Larter in Obsessed, but that movie at least had Larter doing crazy eyes and included a finale that featured a cat fight between her and Beyoncé playing Elba’s wife. Not to take anything away from Henson, but for the fact that she’s supposed to be playing a smart woman, the script only let’s her be smart when its convenient plot-wise. Of course, if it hadn’t she would have slammed the door in Elba’s face and the movie would have been over in 10 minutes. But at least poor Leslie Bibb would have survived to enjoy girls’ night.