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Keeper, The (2004)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Lifeless thriller about a deranged cop (Dennis Hopper) who kidnaps a stripper (Asia Argento) and holds her hostage so that he can teach her how to be good. You'd think having Hopper play a nut and Argento a stripper that some magic would surface but that's not the case as this thriller lacks any suspense and instead enters the "so bad it's mildly entertaining" level. The badness of the screenplay and dialogue allows for plenty of unintentional laughs. Both Hopper and Argento are good in their roles but I really wish the screenplay had done more with their talents. The direction is pretty bad so this here is for fans of the actors only.

So here's an example of a movie that's easy to dislike, since it shamelessly rips off "Lady in a cage" and "The Collector", was done on a shoe-string budget with five to six cameras running during one scene and it has Lochlyn Munro in it. It's got all the creative looks of your typical movie-of-the-week and Asia Argento may be one of the prettiest faces, but her acting abilities are zip to zero. Nevertheless I have seen much worse. The Keeper is done fairly tongue-in-cheek with quite a wry, witty sense of humor and Helen Shaver is in fine form giving a performance so hammy she 's entering Vincent-Price-terrain. And Hopper doing his Hopper-routine is always more entertaining than watching any of those lame-assed method actors. O.K. for the price of an overnight rental, but you won't write home about it. 4/10

The reason for buying this DVD was that Dennis Hopper plays a lead role in the movie. Dennis Hopper is the kind of actor that can make a poor scenario work. One of the best parts he ever did was in True Romance, by Quentin Tarentino. The 10 minutes of his appearance in that movie are classic! The Keeper has some exciting parts that make up for the poor way (I think) in which the plot unravels... Why is deputy Burns sitting at a computer for hours with the same material on it??? The Keeper is an easy to watch movie and therefore simple entertainment. Because of the good acting by Dennis Hopper and Asia Argento I give this movie a 7-, although next time I want to see Dennis in a 10+ movie again!

In Redwood County, the dancer Gina (Asia Argento) is attacked and her boyfriend is killed by a maniac in a motel. Gina is attended by Sergeant Burns (Lochlyn Munro) and Lieutenant Krebs (Dennis Hopper) insists in giving a lift to her when she leaves the hospital. However, he kidnaps Gina and arrests her in a cell in the basement of his isolated house. The deranged policeman has a serious trauma from his childhood with dancers of night-clubs and establishes rules and punctuations for Gina while she is imprisoned. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Krebs is stalked by a local, Ruthie (Helen Shaver), who has a crush on him and wants to promote his amateurish puppet show with the character Deputy Rock, his alter-ego. Sgt. Burns is trying to find a clue where the missing Gina may be.

"The Keeper" is another predictable rip-off of William Wyler's "The Collector". This time, the captor is a deranged lieutenant and the captive is a dancer. The story entertains, but Dennis Hopper is too old and fat for the lead character. The heavy make-up on his face is highlighted in the image of the DVD. It is ridiculous the scene where a young dancer that is keeping her shape working-out in her cell is chased by an old fat man that is able to catch her. Today is a rainy day in Rio de Janeiro, and this movie was a reasonable choice for a boring afternoon. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Obsessão" ("Obsession")

It's truly odd how individuals who can't seem to master simple grammar and syntax will unabashedly critique a movie as if they have the cinematic genius of Roman Polanski.

If you fall into the category of viewer who thinks a film just isn't gosh darn entertaining unless things are "blown up real good", then by all means, give this one a pass. However if you don't spend your day breathing through your mouth and admiring your unibrow, then you will probably find this film to be the entertainment it aims to be.

If there's one type of role Dennis Hopper has down, it's that of a restrained nut job. And in this movie he gets to sink his teeth into the meaty role of a supreme nut job by playing a twisted small town sheriff who thinks he can convince a woman to fall in love with him by abducting her and locking her in a cell in his basement.

Heavily dialog driven, Hopper at times carries this film on his back with his highly compelling performance. Asia Argento, the daughter of Italian horror director Dario, is easy on the eyes and does a perfectly capable job in the role of the captive. Veteran Canadian actress Helen Shaver, surfaces as an equally unhinged groupie to Hopper's character, and her scenes with him eerily evoke fleeting similarities to that of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, Canada's infamous serial killer couple.

The film is capably directed by Paul Lynch, who has made a career out of directing Canadian-filmed US television shows, something which isn't a leap considering that this film was shot in British Columbia.

Overall it's a pretty decent and entertaining little movie. It will hold you to the end and not leave you feeling ripped off. As for some of the other reviewers of this film, well, let's just say it's probably time that they changed the batteries in their singing wall-mounted fish and sat down to some more engaging entertainment.