I like the psycho-thriller sub-genre well enough; these were the wave of psychopath movies that came out in the wake of FATAL ATTRACTION, each offering a differently positioned character - nanny, secretary, lover, boss - who would inevitably turn out to be a raging maniac with homicidal intent. MOTHER'S BOYS offers us a mother from hell, with Jamie Lee Curtis cast against type as a real weirdo.
The set up is decent enough: Joanne Whalley-Kilmer is a solid protagonist, easy to sympathise with. Curtis, too, acquits herself well as villain for the change, proving to be one of those love-to-hate characters. There's some interesting psychological set-up with the children involved in this mess, and some good scenes (like that involving the frog).
Unfortunately, around the halfway point, things start to fall apart. There's way too much lurid melodrama instead of real meat to the storyline, and it all begins to fall apart with plenty of style attempting to mask real substance. The ending is the worst, contrived beyond belief, but the scenes preceding it are lacking, too. I wanted more incident, more motivation, but instead I got clichés and not a lot else besides.
The psycho-thriller genre is an entertaining one, but unfortunately most of the films had the misfortune to be made during the 1990s, a decade which hasn't dated well for cinema. MOTHER'S BOYS is a good example of this.
The set up is decent enough: Joanne Whalley-Kilmer is a solid protagonist, easy to sympathise with. Curtis, too, acquits herself well as villain for the change, proving to be one of those love-to-hate characters. There's some interesting psychological set-up with the children involved in this mess, and some good scenes (like that involving the frog).
Unfortunately, around the halfway point, things start to fall apart. There's way too much lurid melodrama instead of real meat to the storyline, and it all begins to fall apart with plenty of style attempting to mask real substance. The ending is the worst, contrived beyond belief, but the scenes preceding it are lacking, too. I wanted more incident, more motivation, but instead I got clichés and not a lot else besides.
The psycho-thriller genre is an entertaining one, but unfortunately most of the films had the misfortune to be made during the 1990s, a decade which hasn't dated well for cinema. MOTHER'S BOYS is a good example of this.