An exotic dancer named Gina is attacked in a motel, but is rescued by some neighbour. Later on she goes to the police station for questioning, and after that she plans to take a bus and go some place far away from all that has happened. The local small town sheriff, Lieutenant Krebs, offers her a ride to the bus station, but instead of taking her there, he abducts her and locks her in a cell in his basement. In the weeks that follow, Gina has to start seeing things the captors way if she ever hopes to escape from the unstable man.
The Keeper is a typical thriller featuring Dennis Hopper as the small town sheriff who's a mentally unstable man with a messed up childhood. Asia Argento stars as Gina, an exotic dancer who is kidnapped by Hopper and has to stay locked up in a soundproof cell in his secluded country home. As time goes by, she learns that she has to start trying to please the man, playing mind games, in order to be able to escape. And that's about it.
I'm not a huge Dennis Hopper fan, although I like a lot of his work. But recently he has started to disappoint more and more, and for every bad movie he makes, it seems to get harder and harder for him to pick himself up. I was somewhat disappointed with his performance in Land of the Dead, then his horrible performance as the priest with the phony accent in House of 9, and now this. He's not bad here, but on the other hand not nearly as convincing as one could have hoped for.
Lieutenant Krebs (Hopper) has this so-called point system that works as a kind of reward system. That is, do good and you get some points and eventually some high amount of points will give you something in return. That is what he's trying to teach Gina, how to make points, and while of course refusing at first, she figures that she'll have to play his game in order to be able to escape. I can totally understand what they were trying to accomplish and do here, but it's just not very convincing and ends up carrying a constant stupid dialogue that makes everything come out looking pretty stupid and with a just too wooden feel to it.
Another thing that kind of put me off a bit was that there's no mystery whatsoever. Things happen fast in the beginning with Gina being assulted, then kidnapped, but then everything slows down quite a bit. Within the first 10 minutes you already know who the kidnapper is, what he wants to do, and that his hostage's only goal is trying to escape from the place where she's being held, and that's it. Then you figure that there must be some clever twist later on, since this is the type of movie that really needs to have a twist to it. Big no. You can actually predict what's gonna happen within the first 10 to 15 minutes and there are no unexpected events ever occuring which in the end makes The Keeper a pretty dull movie experience.
There's a little more to it, but on the other hand it's not very important. Lieutenant Krebs comes out looking like a straight arrow cop, but underneath the surface he's supposed to be psychotic. But even though he's a weird fellow who says he has Gina locked up for her own good, he never comes out looking like the proper psycho that you wanna see. He's just too nice (yes that's the whole thing but it's just not very effective) and it never really goes anywhere. Movies like this has to have some suspense in them, that's one big element a thriller like this can't survive without, but it's really nowhere to be found. The girl manages to escape a couple of times, but when you see there's still a good half hour left of the movie, you know he's gonna catch her and things are gonna repeat themselves all over again.
The camera-work is ok for what it is, but it's not the type of movie you'd watch for the camera-work. The score is decent and even if it's not the least bit memorable, it still fits the movie and works well in the background. The acting is so-so, not bad but Hopper and Argento are not nearly as convicing with their character as they so needed to be. The suspense is really nowhere to be found and the dialogue is a bit stupid and contains too much nonsense at times.
I found myself having no problem sitting through The Keeper, but it sure did not deliver the goods. For being a thriller it's quite a dull experience that features no real suspense. Hopper is a bit disappointing as the not fully psychotic psycho, and Argento is ok at times but still comes out as pretty weak in the end. If you're looking for a good suspense thriller, it's recommended to look elsewhere.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2004
DIRECTOR: Paul Lynch
WRITING CREDITS: Gerald Sanford
GENRE: Crime, Thriller, Drama
CAST: Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, Helen Shaver
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 96 min
RATING: 4/10
Keeper, The Website/IMDB Click here
Keeper, The Trailer Click here
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