One wonders why The Box is released now, during Oscar season and not buried in shame in January or February. This clumsily morbid ‘thriller’ never gets its groove on in the seemingly endless 115 minutes of its existence, despite stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, two talented actors, working on what seems an interesting premise – push a secret button, someone in the world dies and you get $1M, tax free.
But no, they had to get silly, fancy, ahead of themselves. The story loses its way careening from sloppy romantic tragedy to slick, over inflated sci-fi epic to domestic tragedy leading to mind numbing inanity. When Frank Langella shows up with half his face missing and teeth poking out of his cheek, we know this is going to be one camp night out. Laughs outweigh shivers, if indeed there are any of the latter beyond Langella’s unfortunate face.
Diaz plays a housewife, circa 1976, who receives a mysterious box which she learns from Langella’s mystery man, will bring her a windfall, if she wants it to. All she has to do is push the button. She’ll get a briefcase full of bills, and oh, someone she doesn’t know will die.
It seems this is where things could have become interesting, where she could have spent some serious conscience time with her husband (Marsden) and imagined the results of whatever she decided to do. Instead she goes right around the moral bend in the blink of an eye, smashing the button to smithereens in her zest for tax free cash. After all, she’d lost her job as a college professor the day before and needs money.
And someone does die, the mother of a terrified and traumatised young girl found locked inside the bathroom. Marsden, who works at NASA / Langley FBI (eh?) as an engineer, somehow insinuates his way into the police investigation into the woman’s death and gets to hover over her body and make helpful suggestions to the homicide officers. As if.
There’s a miserable young man with possibly the worst cinema hair since Javier Bardem’s in No Country for Old Men, who delights in embarrassing Diaz’s character making highly personal remarks. He interrupts class to ask why she limps and demands that she show the offending foot. She does; all the toes except the little one are missing. The class reels in horror. He shows up in various places to continue to make rude faces and remarks.
Things get worse and more people die and well, then you realise these are 115 minutes of your life that are gone forever.
Diaz’ famous charm evaporates in The Box, overshadowed by this grossly underwhelming story and its ham fisted execution. The talented Marsden is flattened like all the others characters under the weight of it. Only Langella withstands the embarrassment of this film to walk tall even with only half a face.
35mm suspense thriller
Your Talkback on this Story