The thing about Idris Elba’s two awful thrillers, Obsession and now No Good Deed, is that neither of them seem to be aware of just how bad they are. That’s probably why they consistently fail to deliver on all of the cheesy goodness we want from them. The hokey exploitative indulgences that could have made these dunderheaded movies enjoyable are held at bay by filmmakers who somehow think that the laughable storylines demand to be taken seriously. They could not be more wrong.
No Good Deed begins with an unsanitary exposition dump, featuring a reporter we will never – ever – see again explaining that Elba’s character, Colin Evans, is a violent criminal up for parole. That takes several minutes for to come across. It’s followed by a scene in which Colin Evans is taken to a parole hearing where all of that information that was just explained directly to the audience like it was the complex preamble to Dune is outlined even more efficiently, and with a little bit of drama attached to it as well. Evans makes a humble, winsome plea to the parole board, and is shut down by one member who explains that Evans is a “malignant narcissist.” Words that echo in Evans’s head just in case you didn’t get it. (Narcissist… narcissist… narcissist…)
Related: CraveOnline’s Video Interview with Idris Elba
Evans escapes custody and murders his ex-girlfriend (Kate del Castillo), just in case murdering two prison guards didn’t already convince you that he’s a pretty bad guy. But his car wipes out in a rain storm and he stumbles up to the patio of Terri (Taraji Henson), a former attorney turned frustrated housewife. With her emotionally unavailable husband out of town, and Idris Elba soaking wet on her porch, it looks like she’s just hit the jackpot. Ka-ching?
Yes, that’s what it looks like, but No Good Deed never delivers those goods. Instead of a proper “don’t go in there” thriller in which a woman with an understandable temptation inches ever closer towards a horrifically extreme conclusion, Sam Miller’s film transforms into a meandering parlor room drama in which Evans concocts one charming lie after another and Terri, and her visiting best friend Meg (Leslie Bibb), listen attentively and never actually do anything interesting with him. For god’s sake, ladies, cave in to your desires or tell him to take a hike or SOMETHING. We don’t care where you go or what you do, so long as you do it soon and take Idris Elba’s shirt off with you.
Related: CraveOnline’s Video Interview with Taraji Henson
No Good Deed clearly tries to capitalize on Elba’s towering sex appeal to justify why Terri endangers her family to a dangerous stranger, but it refuses to exploit him enough to either make its point or at least provide the audience with enough prurient thrills to warrant our time and money. When the fit finally does hit the shan it is briefly violent and disturbing – Evans really does have a grotesque appreciation of women – but then No Good Deed resumes its slouch towards meh-thlehem, resorting to the interference of the world’s dumbest police officer and a climactic reveal that can only be described as stupid, stupid, and stupid. It’s the textbook definition of how not to set up a pay off, and vice-versa, calling attention to the film’s artificial manipulations instead of adding to a plot that really could have used a point at some point.
It is a testament to Elba’s and Henson’s talents that they both survive No Good Deed with their reputations intact; bless them, they gave it their best. But they are let down by an unhealthily thin motion picture that fails to work on its own merits or even be laughable enough to entertain in spite of itself. No Good Deed is a no-good film.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
