Movie Review: Fear (1996) seen on DVD and Netflix

Thriller; not recommended for young children; coarse language, nudity, sexuality, sexual dialogue throughout, graphic violence, minor drug use, partial scenes of child endangerment and sexual assault including one scene which depicts animal cruelty

Mark Wahlberg stars in this intense thriller about a troubled young man who falls in love with a teenage girl. Although he is shown to be charming, the girl soon finds out that she has made a mistake as he unleashes on everybody in her life, wanting to have her for himself. He becomes increasingly violent towards others who speak to her. This prompts intervention from her overprotective father. However, his determination to keep her for himself may be too much for even the most strict parent to overcome.

To me, this movie presents a lot of cliches that I think a lot of teenagers go through. The most obvious one would be “Disapproving parents refuse to allow their teenage daughter to see her boyfriend upon seeing his dangerous and aggressive side for fear that he might harm her only for the girl to rebel against this and defend his actions until the very last moment when something bad is about to happen to her because of him thus proving the point that the parents were right in their assumption which causes the girl to realize that parents do know best and that they should listen to them rather than rebel against them as they know now that they are only doing what’s best for them.” cliche. I just realized that was one long cliche. However, it pretty much sums up the entire plot of this movie. A girl meets a man and falls in love with him. Her father is overjoyed until he sees a side of him that he considers dangerous. He then tries to get his daughter to break up with him which she refuses using another cliche of “I’m (insert age,) I can do what I want because he is only acting out because of his rough upbringing and this is none of your business. If you try to stop us, when I’m 18, I’m moving out and will want nothing else to do with you.” cliche. However, she soon realizes her father was right thus leading to the movie’s conclusion where the villain somehow gets his comeuppance forcing a tearful apology between parents and daughter as the movie fades to black.

You know, looking back on this movie, one that I thought was perfect when I first watched it, I realize now that there wasn’t much that was good about it. I mean, anybody who has ever seen a movie where teenagers fall in love are probably used of everything that happened hence there’s really no need to discuss it. It was a very predictable movie which once again proves the point that when it comes to teenagers, parents really do know best. The biggest problem I have with this movie is almost the entire cast of it. I say almost the entire cast because Mark Wahlberg was the only decent actor chosen for this movie. Usually when I review movies, no matter how bad they are or if it would have been given a negative rating otherwise, the appearance of a hot girl, especially one who engages in sex throughout the movie, will boost the rating from negative to positive. This has been the case with a lot of movies I’ve watched recently. However, this movie is very different. I don’t know why they chose Reese Witherspoon to portray his love interest. She’s not regarded as the hottest thing in the world. I think there are better options. I was only a child at the time this movie was released and therefore, I cannot really name any actresses who I thought were attractive at that time. However, I find she was too plain and boring to play that role. Another big problem I have is the situation in this movie. I know some parents are divorced for one reason or another but at least in my mind, the father is the one who should have left. I’m not saying this just because of my own personal experience. I generally believe that mothers are the better type of parent especially when it’s a teenage girl. However, I believe things worked out well for me in that regard as my mother and I are closer than ever and to be honest, I don’t care if I ever see my father again. Having said that, the fact that the father was the one making all of the decisions in the movie, (basically the same situation I find myself in with mom,) while the mother was gone not to mention the fact that the girl had a step mother is something I cannot forgive this movie for including. I mean, it’s one thing if her mother was the one who took care of her and she had a step father, (thus creating the same situation I find myself in personally,) but the fact is they didn’t and every word that came out of his mouth, whether it was to protect her or not was said as he is the one in charge of her and throughout this movie, I was seeing my own father in his image making those same demands as if he is the one in charge of me and my mother is gone. This is something I cannot think about. It makes me sick to think that my father who I cannot stand would have any sort of control over me while mom has none, even though it’s not the same situation. It presents a would be scenario to be if my mother was the one who was never around and never cared about me. This isn’t even the worst part though. While it is somewhat true that I have a step mother in reality, I never cared enough about her to say one word that was positive. I was never nice to her, never cared if I insulted her and this is going to sound really bad….I took pleasure in my father’s complaints about how I treated her. My step father on the other hand is a whole different story. He’s been there for me like my father never was and I’ve even gone as far as to consider him my real father. What does this have to do with the movie you ask? Well, in the movie the girl is forced to treat her step mother as if she is a member of the family. There were scenes in which she was rude to her and for that, the father would ground her. Well if my father ever grounded me for being rude to my step mother, I would tell him to f off and I know mom would agree with me. He simply does not have any authority in my life and you know what? I would even go as far as to say that he was never part of my family to begin with. The problem is that this movie pretty much gives me a look at what my life would be like if he was to take over. It wouldn’t be a dream. It would be a living nightmare. If anything, this movie makes me appreciate mom’s efforts even more and be thankful that she’s the one who raised me and gave me all the motivation I needed to be successful in life. I’m a better person because of mom. I live a better life because of her. This is something that I would never get from my real father. Once again, (I keep forgetting that this is a movie blog,) the movie pretty much in my eyes is a bad dream. One that I have to tell myself was just that, a dream. My father isn’t around anymore. Mom still loves me and the most important thing of all, I still hate my father and will always hate him.

For a movie that stars Mark Wahlberg, I seen to have forgotten to speak of him at all through this blog…..he did a great job in his role but as I’ve spent nearly half of the blog discussing things I don’t like about the movie, much less the fact that he is the only decent thing to come out of it, I have to review the movie as a whole. Though Mark Wahlberg is this film’s saving grace, unfortunately, this movie was a total flop.

Movie rating: 0 out of 10

Next movie review: Deadly Switch