Review: ‘No Good Deed’
As a horror/thriller fan, I couldn’t help but groan as soon as the logo for Screen Gems appeared. While a few of their films in this genre are pretty good to okay, the rest are really, really bad. No Good Deed, for the most part, shakes out on the okay side. Despite the material being elevated by its stars, there are still a number of flaws.
Colin Evans (Idris Elba) has been incarcerated for 5 years on a manslaughter charge. Although he is suspected of numerous other murders, nothing was ever proven. In front of the parole board, he pleads his case, claiming to have reformed. One board member though doesn’t buy it, and since the decision to grant needs to be unanimous, Colin’s bid is denied. On the ride back, he takes the news as well as one reasonably can, by killing the guards and escaping.
He boosts a car of course, but when night falls and the rain comes down hard, he crashes in the woods and then goes to what’s seemingly the closest house for help. This is where Terri (Taraji P. Henson) lives with her two children, as well as husband Jeffrey (Henry Simmons) who isn’t there at the moment. Terri gives Colin the benefit of the doubt and lets him in until the tow truck that he supposedly called for arrives. However, as is apt to happen in these situations, the friendly façade isn’t kept up indefinitely.
There’s some decent suspense here and it can be brutal at times (though it would have greatly benefitted from an R rating and going all the way), but ultimately it’s too routine, right down to the clichés we should be long past. The heroine makes the same stupid mistakes as so many others before her. And seeing as how this character is established as being a former ADA, it makes no sense for her to act this way.
But that didn’t stop the actors from bringing their A game. Elba is terrific, deftly handling the sociopathic complexity of his role. Matching him at each turn is Henson, which makes it all the more disappointing that her character was shortchanged. Leslie Bibb also shows up as a friend of Terri’s; though she’s great in the part, it’s a little too stereotypical of the horror movie best friend.
Much is being made about an ending plot twist. It’s an unpredictable one, but it does not amount to very much. It doesn’t upend the trajectory of the story in any real manner; the events that play out were going to happen with or without it. Was it something I didn’t see coming? Yes. Was it a game changer? No. Was it worth cancelling screenings for? Absolutely not.
While No Good Deed is nothing exceptional and has errors that could easily have been avoided, fans of the actors owe it to themselves to check it out. As for Screen Gems, this doesn’t do much to help their average, but given how really awful their output in this genre has been, it’s a step in the right direction.
