Film Review — "The Intruder"
I’m pleased to report that, to this day, at age 65, Dennis Quaid could still get it. I mean, maybe not as his character Charlie Peck—I’ll get to that soon. But, for now, let us wax lustful in honor of America’s Dad.
Look, I have never wanted to be a pair of jean shorts as badly as when I watched DQ pump those rippling thighs and pedal his ass off in Breaking Away in high school. Similarly, you don’t even want to know what I’d commit in order to Being-John-Malkovich Meryl Streep and occupy her head as she played opposite a shirtless Mr. Quaid in Postcards from the Edge. And let’s not forget that a scubaed up Denny Boy singlehandedly makes Jaws 3-D rewatchable.
Okay, I think that’s enough of that. Oh wait, Frequency! Remember Frequency? I bet your dad does. And Far from Heaven? That’s one to ask your gay uncle about. And… Hold up a minute. A little chiller called… Cold Creek Manor.
Come to think of it, Dennis Quaid already starred in The Intruder once—when it was called Cold Creek Manor. You know, that 2003 flick where Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone and their kids move into a dilapidated country estate and get terrorized by the previous inhabitants?
Well this time around, in The Intruder, Everyone’s Boyhood Baseball Coach plays the psycho inflicting the crazy. Quaid portrays a handsome yet disturbed man named Charlie Peck—see, told you I’d get to it—who sells his Napa home to a young couple named Scott and Annie, played by Michael Ealy and Meagan Good, then a) decides he can’t part ways with the house, and b) becomes obsessed with Annie.
My biggest gripe with The Intruder is its lack of commitment. Like, be thrilling or be bonkers. But this movie actively resists being either, opting to instead stay in that boring middle ground.
Because, for a film pretending to be a thriller, it’s awfully damn slow—but not in that good burn sort of way that builds to something. The Intruder wades…and wades. And flat-out refuses to own its potential campiness. We get glimpses of it. Enough to know that Quaid is willing to go there if called upon. Yet this movie inexplicably seems to want to be taken “seriously”—then has the gall to paint by every single painstaking number in the least interesting way possible.
I can’t tell if the script was always lazy or if on-set rewrites/reshoots killed the flow. Plotting-wise, a solid minute in the first act is heavy-handedly dedicated to setting up a deadly callback that never comes back. Peck’s estate, you see, is called Foxglove, because that very poisonous plant used to grow in abundance there. But does the toxic flower contribute to the story in any meaningful way in acts two or three? Nope. And I don’t think that’s a spoiler. (After all, is it still a spoiler if it’s something that doesn’t happen?)
The Intruder also seems at times like it wants to be political, sorta. Only a little, though. Don’t wanna unnerve the masses too much, I guess. Peck is a rural, red-meat pro-second amendment man’s man. Meanwhile, Scott and Annie are big city liberals, thus discourse. When Peck recommends that Scott get a gun, Scott makes it abundantly clear that he does not tolerate guns, to the confusion of Peck, who wears a red cap in this particular scene. I’ll let you connect that dot.
But again, The Intruder hesitates to commit. If you have something to say, say it! The bones to form a thesis or two are there, but I’m presuming the studio wanted politics dialed back so as not to offend rightwing snowflakes. Whom the conclusion sorta vindicates anyway. Remember when Scott said he hates guns? Yeah, well, it’s pretty predicable at that exact moment that he’ll, ugh, betray his own principles and have to touch a gun to save the day in the end, and well…
To put it plainly, The Intruder is a mostly forgettable popcorn flick. Dennis Quaid is about the only reason to check it out. It’s too bad the filmmakers were so wishy-washy on how to handle the material. Because I could have seen Quaid turning out an admirable performance whether the film demanded a believable, subdued threat or a whacky balls-to-the-wall knock-it-out-of-the-park horror show. He offers us a peek at both versions of Charlie Peck. But, ultimately, The Intruder just doesn’t know what to do. With him or itself.
