Gothika Review

Miranda Grey, Halle Berry, is a doctor who works in the psychiatric ward of a private prison administered by her husband, Doug, Charles S. Dutton. One of her patients is Chloe, Penelope Cruz, a convicted killer. One night, driving in the rain, Miranda swerves to avoid a girl standing in the roadway and crashes her car; she awakens three days later to find herself in the mental wing of her own hospital, accused of killing her husband.Gothika is the Hollywood debut of French director Matthieu Kassovitz, best known for La Haine, and the commercially successful Crimson Rivers. But he seems out of his depth with a film which, even by the standards of the Hollywood gothic suspense thriller, has a singularly absurd plot. Nothing in this film makes the least bit of sense, certainly not the relationships we're supposed to take for granted. Kassovitz tries hard to create creepy scenes (and the production design by Australian Graham Grace Walker is helpful in this regard) but the thrills are standard and it's borderline laughable at times. Robert Downey Jr., who plays a sympathetic colleague of the heroine, brings little distinction to his role; indeed, none of the actors fare very well in this low-level would-be shocker.