Friday, November 2, 2001

Movie review

When you bite into an apple, part of its appeal is that you know exactly what it’s going to be like. Same goes for “Domestic Disturbance.”

There are no surprises in this thriller, but if you’re looking for a competent movie that keeps you in suspense without insulting your intelligence, “Domestic Disturbance” is worth taking in.

In the same mode as “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” it’s a thriller that takes advantage of real feelings — a parent’s concern about the step-parent who is fulfilling part of his role, a kid’s desire for his divorced parents to reunite, parents’ worries that they’re not doing enough for their kids — but has enough feeling for its characters to avoid seeming exploitive.

John Travolta plays the guy whose son says his step-dad (Vince Vaughn, all boyish and menacing) is a killer. The kid has fibbed before, so the skeptical cops treat him like the boy who cried “mean stepfather,” but Travolta knows his son and he suspects there’s something to his tale.

Harold Becker directs “Domestic Disturbance” efficiently and tastefully. Extraordinary things happen, but the characters behave like real people might, and the action movies to a swift, satisfying conclusion, albeit one that is too neatly engineered to make sure the bad people get punished without the good people having to dirty their hands.

You’ll always know exactly where the movie is headed. The only surprises are the somberness (there isn’t a joke to be found) and the colorlessness of Travolta’s role, which finds him on the sidelines much of the time.

In “Domestic Disturbance,” the interesting role is the bad guy and, luckily, Vaughn grabs this apple and takes a big, crisp bite out of it.

— Chris Hewitt
Knight Ridder/Tribune