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Jennifer Lopez points out one of the many gaping plot holes in The Boy Next Door
C-If you ever wondered what a typical Lifetime movie of the week would look like on CInemax, wonder no more; just watch The Boy Next Door. The R-rated woman-in-peril thriller has plenty of sizzle, thanks to Jennifer Lopez and her co-star Ryan Guzman, but not much of anything else, including intelligent plotting and actual thrills.
J-Lo stars as Clare Peterson, a high school literature teacher who has a one-night stand with hunky Noah (Guzman), her new next-door neighbor. He imagines they are soul mates, and, when she tries to let him down, he immediately turns into a younger male version of Alex in Fatal Attraction. Of course, Clare’s shy son sees Noah as his only friend and protector, making Clare’s situation more ticklish.
The Boy Next Door is the type of thriller in which audiences can inevitably predict what’s going to happen in the next two or three scenes. Plus, it contains the usual plot howlers such as a scene in which Noah gives Clare a “first edition” of Homer’s Iliad, a neat trick for a work that dates back at least 2,000 years before the invention of the printing press. The movie’s predictably grisly finale is enjoyably over the top, thanks to the freedom afforded director Rob Cohen by the R rating. That same freedom allows Clare and Noah’s sex scene to be as spicy as possible within the confines of Lopez’s no-nudity contract. Ten minutes of spice and mayhem, however, do not make up for the film’s other 80 minutes of predictably bland tedium.
Continue reading on The Boy Next Door: Mini-Review
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