Annie (Cate Blanchett) lives near Savannah with her kids and makes a living as a clairvoyant (that's the gift). A woman that has an abusive husband and fears for her life comes to see her for reading of cards. The same woman later ends up dead and Annie, using her gift, leads the police to where the dead body is. The husband, Donnie Barksdale (played by Reeves), gets accused of murdering his wife which leads to a trial and Annie start to fear for her life since Donnie keeps paying her visits and threatens her. During the trial Annie has to go through a lot and people question the credibility of her gift. As time goes by, she realises that Donnie might not be the murderer after all.
The Gift from director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Darkman, Spider-Man etc) really came as a surprise. Of course being a fan of his for creating the Evil Dead trilogy, but that doesn't mean that he could make a great thriller. I was pretty sure it was gonna be too Hollywood for my taste, but it actually turned out to be a really interesting suspense flick.
There's a lot of famous actors involved like Billy Bob Thornton who has written the thing together with Tom Epperson (don't know bout that guy) and we also get excellent performances from Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank and Giovanni Ribisi.
Keanu Reeves is not bad, still a little stiff as always but actually quite ok to watch here and he's very convincing as a wife-beater. Overall the movie has a great cast that delivers a good performance which in the end makes a good movie.
The script is also well-written and it's a suspensefull story, not actual horror, but has it's chilling and thrilling moments.
The Gift of course has a twist in the end and it's ok but not as clever as one could've hoped for, but it does the job though. The Gift is a atmospheric thriller with a really good build-up for suspense the longer the movie goes all the way to the final climax.
We also get to know the characters pretty well and so we feel more sympathy for them, especially when it comes to Cate Blanchett who captures the role of Annie perfectly. But the stand out character is definitely Giovanni Ribisi who gives such a great performance as a mentally unstable man and Annies only friend.
If you're up for a really good and well-written suspense thriller with a great cast that really delivers, then look no further.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2000
DIRECTOR: Sam Raimi
WRITING CREDITS: Billy Bob Thornton, Tom Epperson
GENRE: Horror, Thriller
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves
COUNTRY: USA
RUNTIME: 112 min
RATING: 8/10
Gift, The Website/IMDB Click here
Gift, The Trailer
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