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07/25/2009 12:38 PM

EW DVD Review: "Obsessed"

By: Chris Nashawaty - Entertainment Weekly

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If you've got a sweet tooth for trashy movies from the late '80s and early '90s about sexy-but-scorned female psychos, movies like "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle", "The Temp", and "Fatal Attraction", "Obsessed" is the DVD for you. Well, sort of.

Idris Elba of "The Office" stars as a somewhat bland, but very successful financial advisor with a new house, a new baby boy, and a beautiful and sassy wife waiting at home who just happens to be Beyonce. Not bad, right? But then a new temp shows up at his office and his dream life is about to become a nightmare. If that last sentence sounded like a cliché, just wait 'til you start watching this thing.

"Obsessed" busts its hump trying to be a post-racial entry in the gloriously cheesy genre, but mostly it's just a bust. At least, Ali Larter, the star of the TV show who plays the blonde temptress in stilettos here, seems to be having a blast. Never mind that she steals just about every tic and twitch from the Glen Close "I won't be ignored", bunny boiling playbook. At least she gives it her all. The same can't be said for Elba, who, granted has the least flashy role, but seems to sleepwalk through most of the film. As for Beyonce, well, she's pretty much just an afterthought until she gets to bust out her Sasha Fierce claws in the climactic battle royale catfight with Larter. You could say that ending the movie with two women pulling each other's hair and beating the stuffing out of each other isn't exactly enlightened. But "Obsessed" doesn't have time for highfalutin concepts like that, it's too busy ripping off better movies from 20 years ago.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: in "The Soloist", Robert Downey Jr. plays a columnist who befriends Jamie Foxx's homeless musician; in "Race to Witch Mountain", Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson stars in a kiddie film; and in "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" a fantastic documentary takes a look back at one of the strangest college football games ever.