The Resident [2011]

“The Resident” is a thriller that you’ve probably seen hundreds of times before. It’s not exactly a bad movie, as it kept me entertained for the entire 90 minutes, but it’s nothing special either. It would be best to describe it as Hitchcock-lite, as it is an old fashioned psychological thriller that falls short of providing Hitch’s trademark inventiveness but never fails to entertain in equal measure. What we have here is a young doctor (a miscast Hilary Swank) who moves into a new apartment building in Brooklyn, owned by the charming and handsome Max (Jeffrey Dean Morgan in a very unusual role), who we come to find is psychotically obsessed with her.  Surprised? of course not. Like I said, there is nothing remotely new here, and the story grows wearisome as we move along, seemingly unaware that it’s played all of its cards. One of the main problems here is that we don’t really know what made Max the way he is. We are given a brief explanation, but it’s not enough. If done right, this could have been easily a more twisted and disturbing film (think “Psycho”). But because the psychology of the character is never fully explained or his true reasoning revealed, the end result is mediocre at best. Only a person who’s never seen a thriller done well before will probably enjoy what “The Resident” has to offer. Others will have a clear idea the minute the opening credits start rolling.

Rating: 2/4