CASUALTIES boasts an intelligently mapped out premise about the cycles of psychological abuse in romantic relationships. Unfortunately, it's forced down the road of a conventional thriller, and the ride isn't smooth.
Annie Summers (Caroline Goodall) can neither satisfy the demands of her possessive mate, Bill (Jon Gries), nor escape his clutches; a policeman, Bill can always locate her and return her to their unhappy home. Despite support from Bill's partner, Clark (Michael Beach), Annie feels powerless to
report his abuse, since Bill's department protects him due to his heroic bust of a drug cartel.
While enrolled in a cooking class that Bill insisted she take, Annie meets a lonely bachelor, Tommy Nance (Mark Harmon), who offers her a less punishing existence. But Tommy is actually a hit man. Even though he leads Annie to believe his motives are purely gallant, Tommy has been paid by drug
lords to wipe out the local anti-narcotics force, including Annie's best friend, Beth (Lisa Darr). Bill proves difficult to execute; Tommy dopes him up, stabs him, and shoots him to death. Whisking Annie away to his secluded loft, Tommy treats her like a cherished china doll.
Although she is aware that Tommy killed her husband, Annie responds to his tender loving care. But she soon realizes she has exchanged a domestic prison for a gilded cage. Snooping in Tommy's personal computer files, Annie discovers Tommy's assignment to slay Bill, Beth, and Clark. Annie tips off
Clark, and Tommy's hit fails. Shaken by Annie's betrayal, Tommy confronts her, and she assaults him with a frying pan. When Clark arrives, Tommy shoots him several times. Annie kills Tommy with Clark's gun and drags Clark out of the apartment to safety.
Better as a dramatized exploration of shifting psychological control than as a thriller, CASUALTIES makes some cogent statements about abused women and the cycles of violence in which they are often caught. Despite some implausibility (how many hitmen allow themselves the luxury of falling in
love, especially with the wives of victims?), CASUALTIES is satisfyingly well acted and grips the audience due to its directorial and histrionic intensity.
The introduction of drug cartel-ordered executions amidst the emotional nuances rings a bit false. Also, the script allows the Tommy-Annie romance to escalate too quickly--surely a cold-blooded assassin wouldn't open up his heart so easily. In addition, the film doesn't manage to filter Annie's
growing terror through a mesh of suspense. Yet CASUALTIES hooks viewers on the horns of its central dilemma: Is enslavement any more defensible if it's enforced by psychological means rather than by brute force? Manipulated by two different kinds of monsters, Annie doesn't become one herself, but
she learns to play by Tommy and Bill's rules. Homicide may be an extreme means to find one's identity, but CASUALTIES shrewdly makes the audience ponder the shadowy areas among the power plays that characterize any bad relationship between a man and a woman. (Graphic violence, nudity, sexual
situations, adult situations, extreme profanity.) leave a comment
