No Good Deed (2014)

A thriller movie's number one job is to be thrilling. Someone must've told the makers of NGD that passionate yelling between well-dressed yuppies on top of melodramatic score swells can pass as thrilling. Instead of excitement and scares, NGD gives us artlessly directed stiffness that only manages to be shockingly unpleasant. It's the kind of forgettable, mindless dreck that completely lacks identity or personality. Sure it's mercifully short, but it's even more mercilessly ugly. (WARNING: bad pun coming) All in all, No Good Deed has no good part. Elba plays an escaped murderer who wreaks havoc on Henson's family by tricking his way into their home. Lucky for Elba's character, there's not a single sharp knife in the drawer of characters he encounters. He uses his powers of clichéd dialogue and lazily-written coincidences to get whatever he wants, which is…unclear, to say the least. We know he's a "bad guy", but why? And what is his end goal? Motivations take a back seat in NGD, with the focus instead on predictable thriller beats, harlequin-novel style plotting, and a twist that is far from earned. Elba and Henson are both formidable screen presences, and it would normally be a gift to see them work together. Unfortunately to call their NGD characters one-dimensional is giving them one too many dimensions, unless pure sociopath and complete moron are dimensions. They're characters are purely there to force a hackneyed and dangerous message: all men are evil. Go see Guardians or Turtles again, but do all you can to stay away from this mid-budget Lifetime Channel movie.

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Fmovies: This was a very good movie. I don't understand what most of the reviewers are talking about. It has everything that ALL of these kinds of movies have with a little more action and strength from the main female character. In fact, in most movies where you are sitting at home wishing the victim would do certain things, she does them all. There is a lot of good acting by the cast as well. Idris is always a great actor and he does not disappoint here. Most thrillers are predictable; there's a bad guy and a good guy and they duke it out to see who wins, so those complaining about there here must not watch a lot of movies. It was good and I would recommend it.

Even after having watched the trailer you'll be in for lots of surprises. There were a few things I didn't see coming, subtle twists and turns which caught me off guard. Idris and Taraji have great chemistry on screen, you want to watch them and you don't get bored watching them.

I love to see films with black people in them, which have nothing to do with race or where race isn't even mentioned once. You literally could have placed any one from any ethnic background in any of those characters and it would have worked.

This movie re-enforced to me that Taraji and Idris are really good actors, I got my money's worth. I went to see the movie at the Grove where there are lots of tourists and people from all over the country, who have normal reactions to what they see on the screen. The audience as a whole cared a lot about Taraji's character, they cheered for her when she was winning and they had natural human responses that were real, and so at the end of the day, that says to me all the people involved in making this movie did their job. Seeing the film there got me avoiding the jaded Hollywood movie "experts" on cinema with their snobby intellectual bully b.s, I was with regular people at a movie theater, the reason actors make movies to begin with, the people who are funding our industry with their hard earned dollars, not movie critics who go the movies for intellectual stimulation instead of reading a freaking book. You're gonna like Taraji's bff, she has a great moment with Idris that has everyone who has a best friend going "YOU TELL IT."

I personally love to go see a movie and turn off my brain and enjoy myself and you get to do this with this movie, it kept my attention from beginning to end. Go see it, worth your money!

No Good Deed fmovies. If they can make 'em for white people, then I guess they can make 'em for black people too. The "em" I am referring to is of course B-movie thrillers, which also falls into the category of: horror/date night fluff. In that same vein, "No Good Deed" is also predictable fluff; like, killer in the house and the girl runs upstairs, kind of predictable fluff. But I can't deny that I was fairly entertained by "No Good Deed"; even as all logic (ALL LOGIC) flew out the window about 20 minutes in, when (on a dark and stormy night) a black woman lets a strange black man into her home and offers him a change of clothes. Come on now; that would never happen.

From the trailers alone "No Good Deed" stunk of a Tyler Perry production; an insensitive black husband, his supremely intelligent yet shockingly under-appreciated black wife, and a man with anger management issues who is noticeably darker than the rest of the cast. Even as the film began, everything about it had the markings of something pretty "basic". An escaped convict (Idris Elba) with a history of violence towards women, harasses a woman (Taraji P. Henson) who is conveniently home alone. Yes, there is a twist at the end that is a bit too clever for this premise, but aside from that, the structure of "No Good Deed" is quite similar to films we've all seen before; only this time targeted at an African American audience, with Henson playing the part of the dumb blondÂ…that is, until she says: "ENOUGH!" That said, the only thing which separates a "basic" movie from a watchable movie with a basic premise, is the filmmaker's execution and the actors involved.

While it is somewhat curious as to why Elba would star in a movie like this at this point in his career (and also hold a producer credit) for how one dimensional his character is, he does sell it with a performance that is brutally and relentlessly intimidating. As for the supporting cast, it is what it is. Henson screams when she is supposed to and acts sassy when Idris gives her just a bit too much lip. The script also contains more than enough "urban" attitude, which, along with Elba's menacing presence going toe to toe with Henson's "I'm Every Woman" performance, gives audiences those yell at the screen moments they paid to see.

The direction from Sam Miller is really what makes this movie what it is, as he simply does what he is asked to do, delivering a surprisingly high amount of tension throughoutÂ…and nothing more. Now, I don't want to heap too much praise on Miller's work, since what he has made is simply the cinematic equivalent of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But there is something to be said for a well-executed peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Final Thought: At the end of the day "No Good Deed" may only work to reinforce the of stereotype of the "angry black man", but due to a good hour of well-constructed, tension driven sequences, followed by a few chase sequences, I fail to see how anybody wouldn't find this experience entertaining on some B-movie level. At the very least, "No Good Deed" is far far FAR more entertaining than the latest Kevin Hart movie or the annual "Tyler Perry Presents: Black People Acting a Fool" production.

Look here is the skinny on this flick. It is so predictable I found myself saying out loud (but quietly) what was going to happen next. I mean really people can't these Hollywood money men find some better quality movies to get behind to finance. Let's not forget this movie as all the rest are a business. The business of INVESTING cash to produce a movie with the hopes you will spend your entertainment dollars seeing it so it makes them millions in profit. Don't let them make money on this one or we will never get them to stop producing trash and fooling us into thinking it's worth the price of a ticket and $15.00 popcorn. Plot plot plot help me find something entertaining about this movie that we don't know is going to happen before it happens. The acting is average and if an academy award ever makes it to this movie it will be because somebody paid somebody! Don't waste your money on this film you will be disappointed. Go see Denzel instead!!!! :-)

The story portrayed in this film is pretty much spelled out in the trailer. Crazy escaped convict terrorizes a woman and her kids. That's pretty much it, but there is a nasty little twist in the story that I did not see coming (although I did have a feeling). You knowÂ…. When you ask yourself "surely it isn't this" and come to find out Â…. Oh yes, it is. I have to give Colin (Indris Elba) a lot of credit for playing it super cool to make his way into the house. Although you knew he was the "bad" guy who is eventually going to snap, you kind of find yourself liking him for a little while (with his fine self). Terri (Taraji P. Henson) was a relatively smart women who made some serious errors at the beginning of the film, but had I not known in advance what was going to happen, I probably would not have thought that she did anything wrong. She was just trying to be nice and do the right thing. Meg (Leslie Bibb) is Terri's best friend and she drove home the point that no one knows you better than your best friend. At first I thought that she was going to be a little ditzy, but she proved me wrong. Jeffrey (Henry Simmons) is Terri's husband who does not seemed to be vested in the relationship. This is very apparent right from the beginning. I went to the 2nd showing on the day the film was released and I have to say that the theater was pretty well populated. The one thing that I have to say about seeing a film with a diverse crowd is that folks talk (out loud) to the people on the screen (myself included). Toward the end of the film I heard myself saying "how does she think that's going to work" and then immediately after that I said "why does he think that worked"Â…... you'll see what I mean when you go to see it. Other than that, there are three reasons why I liked this filmÂ…., the great lead characters, the consistent flow of the film and finally the whole story was told in around 90 minutes. This is director Sam Miller's first attempt at a widely distributed feature film and I think that he did a pretty good job. I would recommend it to a friend.