Side Effects (2013) Directed by Steven Soderbergh

After a kind of slow and not all that interesting start, this movie luckily redeems itself in its second half!

I wasn't really liking where this movie was heading at at first with its story. The way the story got told made it seem like this was some sort of anti-prescript drugs movie, as if the director Steven Soderbergh had a personal beef against the pharmaceutical companies and psychiatrist who are happy to prescribe all kinds of drugs to their patients, no matter what side effects they might cause. But no, as it turned out this movie was actually about more than just that and it luckily started to develop a better and more engaging storyline for the second half of the movie.

At first it seemed that the Jude Law character was going to be a pretty redundant one but as it turned out, it actually in the end was more or less his movie. He becomes the center of attention, once certain plot lines start to develop. This is also when the movie truly starts to get interesting and the movie decides to keep throwing some nice twists and turns at you.

The movie is still lacking a certain punch to it, to ever truly impress but the movie as it is still works out fine as an original and interesting enough little thriller. It's certainly different from the usual genre attempt, so if you have grown tired of watching big, slick and formulaic Hollywood genre movies, this is a great alternative for you!

Thing this movie fails at though is making you truly feel involved with anything or anyone. The characters are lacking a certain depth to them, to make you feel truly involved with any of them and care about their faith and the eventual outcome of this movie. emotionally this just isn't a very good drama but luckily the thriller elements still work out well enough, so it sort of makes up for things.

Of course another thing that this movie has obviously going for it is its acting. Rooney Mara is especially great and I also really liked Jude Law in his role. It still seems like a weird choice to cast Channing Tatum in any sort of dramatic role but luckily he never becomes the main focus of this movie, so he doesn't really get to 'ruin' anything.

A good and original watch but just not the greatest genre movie you are ever likely to come across.

7/10

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