DERAILED (2008)

A suburban male ad exec meets a striking woman on a commuter train. They meet again--despite their spouses. But during a daytime tryst in a hotel, a brute savagely attacks them and begins a deadly game of blackmail. Like his hero, Siegel works in advertising. And his thriller plays like one of those Pepsi Twist commercials--in which, say, the Osbourne kids reveal themselves to be the Osmonds. Both are superficially entertaining and easily consumed. Both revel in narrative surprises and the occasional one-liner. ("The pause wasn't merely pregnant, it was pregnant with triplets.") And too often, both ask us to take a leap of faith without tying the bungee cord to anything substantial, like reality.

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