No Good Deed

There’s no question why ‘No Good Deed’ is the #1 movie in America right now. Knocking ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ striaght out of the top spot, the movie’s quick suspense and appealing cast are clear indications that the film is well worth the $24.5 million box office sales.

A deserted housewife, Terri (Taraji P. Henson), shows an escaped convict, Colin (Idris Elba), a brief act of kindness. But, that brief of act of kindness swiftly turns into a night of terror. Taraji P. Henson and Idris Elba are electifrying and the pair, who also serves as executive producers, are a match made in movie heaven.

When Idris Elba plays the villain it fondly reminds me of this days as Stringer Bell on HBO’s ‘The Wire’. His role in this movie is like when Denzel Washington was in ‘Training Day’ (2001)- the utter excitement of seeing the good looking guy play the bad boy. Elba is charmingly attractive on screen with his artifical American accent, even though his English accent slips in occassionally.

Doesn’t it seem like trailers are now starting to reveal too much of the storyline? Initially, I was frustrated with the ‘No Good Deed’ trailer because it was giving too much of the plot away. Despite the lengthy trailer, there are lots of twists and turns. The thriller creates the creepy suspense of ‘The Shining’ (1980) and man-vs-woman battle of ‘Enough’ (2002).

I knew it wouldn’t be long before someone took this fictional scenario and made a real life reference. When the Ray Rice NFL decision broke early last week, social media pages were flooded with a meme about women and their double standards. Here’s the Instagram post:

Although this movie’s release date has been set for almost a year, maybe it was bad timing. Or maybe it’s a mere coincidence that Ray Rice’s video publicly surfaced around the same time a movie about domestic violence would be released. Clearly, the connection did not stop millions of movie goers from enjoying the movie this past weekend.

As a woman, at no point in time did Ray Rice’s elevator footage dilute my desire to see this flick. While domestic violence is a global epedimic, the issue is widely depcited in movies and should serve as platform rather than promotion. ‘No Good Deed’ touches on other relevant topics like Infidelity (Future, Stevie J) and Child Endangerment (Adrian Peterson). (And we didn’t attack those people or make a sad association.)

3.5 STARS