[7]

Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon headline this taut, engaging thriller from screenwriter Christopher Crowe (Last of the Mohicans) and director James Foley (After Dark My Sweet, Glengarry Glen Ross). Witherspoon plays a high schooler who falls head over heels for the sexy-as-fuck Wahlberg, a former underwear model who is introduced in this movie wearing a shirt pulled so tight across his chiseled body it’s about to explode. (And thank God that shirt comes off a few times.) Witherspoon gets fingered on a rollercoaster and then loses her virginity to this adonis. But then she realizes she’s made a mistake. Wahlberg’s character becomes dangerously obsessive and violent. Let’s just say friends and pets do not fare well in this movie. Crowe’s rock-solid screenplay spirals into a tense third act that will have you on the edge of your seat while Witherspoon’s whole family tries desperately to keep Wahlberg and his druggie buddies from breaking into their house.

If this movie were made today, it would be entirely about Wahlberg and Witherspoon and the parents would be aloof goofballs who conveniently go on vacation during all the mayhem. But one of the things that sets Fear apart is the fact that it’s just as much William Petersen and Amy Brenneman’s movie as it is anyone else’s. They play Witherspoon’s dad and stepmom. They help her through the emotional ups and downs of breakup, they are believably concerned about her, and they rally together as a real family when Marky Mark comes a’knockin’. Even the little brother character risks his life to save the family. I loved the fact that the film became about a whole family instead of just two teenaged lovers.

I also loved the fact that I liked all of the characters. And I loved seeing all the colors of the rainbow in a movie that was released before the creation of digital color grading. I loved hearing an old-fashioned film score by Carter Burwell that was emotional and thematic. I dug that whenever James Foley moved the camera, it was motivated and it meant something.

So color me impressed. I really liked Fear. I wish they still made movies like it.

With Alyssa Milano.