Film Review - Side Effects (2013)

Side Effects is directed by Steven Soderbergh and stars Rooney Mara as Emily Taylor, a young woman whose husband (Channing Tatum) is coming out of jail after serving a 4 year sentence for Insider Trading, but the time he's served behind bars has left some devastating side effects on his young wife.

Side Effects for me, is merely okay, it's far from a terrible film but it's also not a real standout in terms of murder mystery thrillers, Mara effectively carries the film on her own two shoulders and is more than equal to the task, her and Jennifer Lawrence would have to be among the most talented actresses of their generation and it's easy to see why in the case of Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones are also okay in their roles as Emily's doctors that she sees throughout the film though Channing Tatum merely across as "Token Hunk 101" and his character has very little to do with the proceedings.

But the film's biggest problem is the script by Scott Burns, at times it feels unfocused in terms of where to take its storyline and characters and how the various twists are played out made me think of "Jagged Edge" where it tried to be too clever for its own good in terms of who really did what and like that film, it fails at that task.

But hey as I said, it's far from terrible as a movie but it's also a film that's best saved for a Saturday Night DVD rental, a far better example of this type of film is one that ironically enough Roadshow themselves released in 1992 called Shattered with Tom Berenger, seek out a copy of that film instead of seeing this one as it's a much better mystery thriller film than this one is, 2 out of 5.