Domestic Disturbance

Starring John Travolta and Vince…

Domestic Disturbance

Starring John Travolta and Vince Vaughn

Directed by Harold Becker

The tagline for “Domestic Disturbance” reads “He will do anything to protect his family.”

I hope “he” will protect his family by not taking them to this movie.

Directed by Harold Becker, “Domestic Disturbance” revolves around a divorced father (John Travolta) trying to convince the population of the small town he lives in, especially his ex-wife, that his chronic liar son Danny (Mathew O’Leary) witnessed his stepfather (Vince Vaughn) kill a man (Steve Buscemi).

This is a very straightforward suspense plot: Did he or didn’t he see? Unfortunately, the audience knows the answer to that question before the end of the first hour. Any sense of suspense is destroyed because of that. Without the suspense, the movie has nothing to offer.

Swearing has been edited out of a number of scenes in the movie. Characters will obviously mouth one swear word and another, milder one will come out. This was done, of course, to get a PG-13 rating. Vaughn does say the f-word one time without being edited, though.

Supposedly, this is meant to be “edgy.”

It is hard to believe that many under-17 moviegoers would want to see this movie to begin with, so editing out the language is a pointless gesture. Keeping the movie intact with an “R” rating might have helped it.

Vince Vaughn is the only highlight of the movie. He is consistently engaging and does the best he can with the material given to him. He goes from the nicest guy in the world, the perfect stepfather and husband, to reprehensible bad guy in the blink of an eye.

Ultimately, the screenwriter, Lewis Colick, tries to do too much. It is poorly written; every plot point is spoon fed to the audience. The dialogue, consequently, is cringe-worthy.

If you look real close, you can almost see Vaughn and Travolta screaming, “Get me out of here!” Who knows what in this movie appealed to them, but they do the best they can.

The opening credits of the movie are done in a Hitchcock style, from the way the images are shown to the music playing over them. Too bad the rest of “Domestic Disturbance” doesn’t follow this lead. If it had, the movie could have been genuinely suspenseful and entertaining.

— Dante A. Ciampaglia, staff writer