While She Was Out

Plot synopsis:
On Christmas Eve, suburban housewife Della Myers (Kim Basinger) who lives in a upscale American suburb gets into an argument with her abusive husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer). He notices on the way into the house, that the floor is covered with their children's toys and clothes. Kenneth verbally abuses Della about her poor housekeeping abilities, and intimidates her by getting into her face, threatening Della by punching a hole in the wall beside her head. After putting her two children to bed, she drives to the mall to buy some last minute wrapping paper. At the mall, Della has a hard time finding a place to park. She circles around and around and soon spies an empty parking space but some Jerk has parked his car to occupy two spaces. Finally, after getting a parking spot, Della walks by this car and writes a note, Jerk, 2 spaces? How inconsiderate, and leaves it on the window of the car. By the time she finishes her purchase, the parking lot is nearly deserted and the note is gone from the car. As she enters her own car, the car on which she had left the note pulls up behind her.She confronts the gang of four young men from the car - the Afro-American Huey (Jamie Starr), the Vietnamese-American Vingh (Leonard Wu) and the Latin Tomás (Luis Chávez) - led by Chuckie (Lukas Haas). Della's taunts Chuckie's name saying "only a moron would name their child that" Where his comeback was that he didn't have any parents and he named himself!Della and the gang members start to push each other around, and a mall security guard steps in to intervene on Della's behalf, but is accidentally shot by Chuckie in the ensuing standoff. As the gang realize that they have committed a murder, Della manages to start her car and drives away. They follow her, intending to kill the only witness.The car chase ends up in a new subdivision that is under construction and Della crashes her truck but escapes uninjured with a red tool box. She takes a flare and her toolbox out of the car and hides behind a dredger. Della runs to the buildings under construction as they discover her. Believing that Della must be carrying something valuable in the little red tool box, the gang forces Della to reveal that she was lugging a full set of tools (mechanics and perhaps some other sharp pointy type implements meant for some repair work).Inspired by the love of her children, Della is determined to survive her nights ordeal. The gang members are shown to be extremely adept at the art of tracking prey in the dark of night, almost unerringly choosing the right direction to go and seeing all possible clues left behind by Della, while waving a single flashlight wildly around and repeatedly yelling Della's name, taunting her and of course all the while, spewing out idle threats.Trying to get the woman, Tomás stumbles upon Huey, who falls and breaks his neck by mischance. After some hide and seek in the woods, Della beats and finally kills Tomás with a cross-wheel-type wrench. She flees through a creek, pursued by Chuckie and Vingh who argue and split up. Della sneaks up on Vingh and kills him in a close fight with another of her tools (the last one) and hides behind a fallen tree.Chuckie tries to persuade Della that he won't kill her. He talks about her kids, saying that he is going to pay them a visit. She screams and he tells her that he won't harm them because they are children and they should not be harmed. He tells her what he thinks of her, that she lives a boring life she doesn't want, mistreated by her husband. He finds her, touches and teases her face. She holds his hand, pulls him down and they kiss. He pulls the gun, both play around .. kissing, teasing. She curses herself and as he is distracted she ignites the flare and blinds him and then takes his gun and shoots him dead.The dazed and exhausted Della returns home, where Kenneth complains like always that she was gone for so long, but Della (deciding to keep her harrowing adventure to herself) ignores him. She goes upstairs to check on her children who are both sleeping. The drunk Kenneth asks if she bought him something at the mall. She points the gun at him and says: "Nothing".

Tags: murder

Review:
Della Myers (Kim Basinger) is an upper-class housewife that lives in a private condominium in the suburbs with her twin children and her abusive husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer).
Not the worse (despite being engulfed by negatives), but there's easily way better in what is an causally lukewarm, but compact and unbalanced late-night survival fable of a feeble suburban housewife stranded in the woods trying to fight for her life after she witnessed the death of a rent a cop that came to her aid, when she provoked an ugly exchange with some punks in a shopping car park.The problem here falls on the misguidedly erratic and foreseeable material (taken from a short story), along with the very variable performances.
Watching Basinger scrounging around in the dank wilderness with a red tool box in her hand (don't ask me why?) knocking off these wannabe punks one by one became ridiculous because it didn't elicit tension or emotion but instead clumsy jolts that were absurdly daft because of the stupidity of the lead up.
She could do ads on why you shouldn't talk on a cell phone while driving, especially at night on the way to a crowded mall.Susan Montford should stick to producing (Shoot 'Em Up ) as she is not very good as a writer/director.She is accosted by four thugs in the mall parking lot, and the first thing they do is tell her they have a gun.
I remember the days in which Kim Basinger was nothing more than a pretty face who adorned movies with typical characters of dumb Blondie,romantic interest or damsel in danger.But,everything changed when she won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the excellent movie L.A. Confidential,and I think I was not the only one who was surprised by her solid performance.However,after that moment,her career did not follow the ideal path.Sure,the prestige she won thanks to that movie made her to participate on moderately prestigious movies (like People I Know or The Door in the Floor),but we have never seen her again on a substantial character.The movie While She Was Out does nothing to put her on that situation; and it is not only that her character is not too tasty,but also that the movie is really crappy.The screenplay from this movie could not be more hollow and basic.However,Basinger brings some conviction to her character,and that makes this poor movie to win a few points.This movie is full of clichés and generic villains.The work of director Susan Montford is truly disastrous for many reasons but mainly,because the movie never gets a good rhythm and tone.The ending from this movie is extremely ridiculous.I do not recommend While She Was Out at all.This film commits the capital sin of being boring..
It's a fairly standard chase movie as a woman is chased through the night by a gang of thugs out to kill her in revenge for her having left a nasty note on their car when they double parked in a busy parking lot on Christmas Eve. So, yeah, it's a variation on a pretty standard theme.
This is what you need to know about this movie, besides the fact that I recommend it as solid thriller: Kim Basinger, suburban mother of 2, lives with abusive husband.
On Xmas she decides to go buy some stuff at the mall and while she's out, a series of bad things happen - getting her into serious trouble.I wouldn't read more before watching the movie.
It's also filled with irony - sometimes it reminded me of Predator and Home Alone - being a horror movie only in the sense of the cat-and-mouse game hunt.In a role that's surprisingly physical, Kim Basinger does a good job as the protagonist.
I have to say, I did really enjoy this movie.It's not gonna be an Oscar winner, but it's a great independent thriller with some superb performances - Kim Basinger's performance was, of course, central, but kudos has to go also for Craig Sheffer's believable performance as her abusive husband.I figure everyone knows the basic plot, but there were still enough surprises to keep me entertained.
It wasn't full of shocking twists but it still kept you gripped where the story was going to end up.All credit has to go to Kim Basinger, who's matured into a really good actress and whose vulnerability ensured you never lost sympathy for the character and to Susan Montford for delivering a lively and entertaining script.It's not flawless - I admit the 82 minute running time felt a little short for me and after a length build up, the sequences with Basinger fighting for her life felt a little briefer than I might have hoped for.Luke Hass was great as the central protagonist, but he seemed too clean cut on occasion and sometimes lacked the air of danger I'd have expected.
He didn't quite hit the right level of seductive villainy that I might have expected (from, say, Christian Slater in Heathers) but he had a great turn nonetheless and some memorable dialogue.Sometimes the plotting seems a little contrived - placing Kim's character in the middle of nowhere with no means of contacting help - but completely forgivable given that it's a standard of the genre.The simple plot mostly works for the film, though, rather than against it and means the actors have to work towards making you care about their characters And they do.
Saw this film with my friend when it came on DVD and i liked it, i cared about the characters and the movie kept me interested till the end.
The acting was not the best, but still not that bad as every reviewer says.If your looking for a movie like The Dark Knight, your at the wrong place.
An abused housewife (Kim Basinger) goes shopping for wrapping paper on Christmas Eve, and finds herself alone and confronted by a gang of thugs who wish to do harm to her.
I don't know how realistic it is to carry a toolbox along when you're trying to run away silently from thugs, but I can't deny the nice splashes of blood that come from driving tools deep into a bad guy's head.
These are places that do NOT like movies in general and they love the film.
Besides the fact that this movie was probably the most awful thing i've ever seen, we had the joy of watching Kim Bassinger, in the midst of being chased by ruthless gangsters with autism, squat down in the middle of a babbling brook and urinate...
I've just finished watching this and I refuse to go too much into spoiling the plot or the characters so here is my simple review.The good points - Starts off really well, I also spotted Guillermo Del Toro's name on the executive producer titles at the beginning which gave me a promising outlook, a couple of quite inventive killings along the way.The bad points - unfortunately this film falls short big time I'm not sure if it's because Basinger has had her producer input or not, but I feel the average film watcher will probably turn this off halfway through, I personally found the film repeats it's self too much.The bad points out way the good points in this film so on that i could not recommend this.Enjoy if you do though..
I conclude she did - if only for the fact that fans will be waiting with inversely invigorated intensity to see what she may do in the future.It starts uncharacteristically well - the audience is put right on the edge of their seats as the tension ratchets up in the opening scenes in the car park - but what follows is an incredulous catalogue of minus scripting, minus screenplay, and desperate acting, that eventually breaks an involuntary smirk out the side of your mouth, as you begin to pity the actors involved.I give it 2 because Mdm Bassinger is in it and its soooo bad, its worth watching once just to see what people are talking about..
This is one of the worst human creations of this millennium.The fundamental thing wrong with this movie other than its ridiculous story of a woman running away from four weak thugs, is the blatant and complete lack of LOGIC.**After she leaves the mall, she gets approached by four thugs as they surround her.
She had a good three minute lead on the pursuers, instead of simply running off on foot in a diagonal direction behind houses and climbing fences and continuing, she gets out her Red Toolbox and starts messing around under her hood.
It feels like that's what they tried to do with Kim Basinger here, as she opens the toolbox dramatically and quickly takes out a WRENCH and dispatches one of the thugs, and somehow GETS AWAY from him and the three other thugs.**Throughout the rest of the movie, basically what you see is this suburban house wife, sneaking around the woods as she carries her Red Toolbox, taking out various tools used as weapons to KILL HER ATTACKERS.**When she was running away, how did she end up moving BACK to where the thugs were?
Let alone how she kills the moronic thugs one by one.This is so stupid, without the least bit of logic, I can only warn you watching it, it's a TOTAL waste of time, honestly !!.
This is the worst thriller I've ever seen and I've seen The Bone Collector and Twisted.The story details Della(Kim Basinger)is just getting from buying gifts in a mall an is harassed by a gang of thugs that end up killing a cop that came to her aid.
As I said this movie leaps over logic at every turn and with the exception of Kim Basinger, the acting is made-for-TV bad.
Half way through the film the protagonist pulls out her toolbox and of course instead of lobbing it at the guy's head, she decides to pull out a screwdriver, car jack and finally a flare (as in for a sinking ship) respectively to kill her victims.Then there is the final line that I promise, if it doesn't have you in stitches then I will eat my own left foot.I would recommend this film to those who simply want to laugh at some good old fashioned, appalling film making.
I think that Basinger does a decent job at acting, but you can't make a thriller if there is a great lack of realism.This scene paints a good picture for you of the movie : while Basinger is pursued by murderous thugs she decides to sit down and gaze upon a picture she finds from her pocket.
While She Was Out. A suburban mother, Della(Basinger), from a gated community, who has endured an abusive marriage from an intense bullying husband, goes out to get wrapping paper, doesn't appreciate that a gang of punks parked out of place blocking a spot so she couldn't pull in there(it's Christmas eve and traffic's a bitch), leaving a note to them in anger.
While returning from a Christmas Eve shopping trip, an abused suburban housewife (Basinger) finds herself in a fight for survival after a disagreement with a group of delinquent youths takes a violent turn.Suffering the indignity of a straight to DVD release here in the U.K., Susan Montford's directorial debut will perhaps not be given the recognition it deserves.
This is a shame, as the standard of the writing, directing and acting is very good indeed, and certainly surpasses the quality of your average straight to DVD flick.Kim Basinger gives her best performance in some time as the downtrodden wife of an abusive husband (Craig Sheffer).
So this was supposed to be a thriller, but I found myself laughing most of the time while watching this super stupid movie.
9.Instead of hiding into the woods, she sometimes takes a stupid tool from her Red Box, and jumps to kill a thug like Rambo.
Returning to her car after visiting the shops she is confronted by some yobs, Yup the owners of the car she left a note on, they are very angry and want some fun with her, a kindly security guard steps into assist her, but things get out of hand and the guard is shot, Della flees with the now murderous yobs in hot pursuit, they shoot at her, she looses control of her car and crashes, quickly grabbing her toolbox from the trunk, she hides in a deserted building site, but is soon caught, just before they try to rape and kill her, from her magical toolbox she produces a wrench, wounding their leader "Chuckie", she manages to escape again into the nearby woods, in the fracas one of the gang is killed, it just happens to be the black guy Here the night gets worse for all involved as a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.
As a film its plot line is completely telegraphed all the way through, even in the set up early on Della's cell phone goes dead and then in the shops her credit card has been cancelled by her hubby and she has no cash and its Christmas Eve, now where could they be going with this I wonder???
Kim Basinger stars as Della, a housewife who has twin children (Terri and Tammi-played by Luke Gair and Erika-Shaye Gair) and an abusive jerk for a husband (Kenneth), played by Craig Sheffer.The movie opens on Christmas Eve. Kenneth is on his way home from work, driving a nice car too I might add.
They shoot a security guard who intervenes and Della speeds off; pursued by the gang of thugs who want to get rid of the witness.She crashes her car and hides, grabbing a red toolbox.
As the gang chase her through building sites and forest she knocks them off one-by-one with different tools from the red toolbox.The surviving gang members get spooked, deciding that she had a taste for blood.This was a strange movie but in a wonderful way; Kim Basinger is like a deer caught in the headlights but wants to survive for her children, and she gets better and better at dispatching the gang members.When she gets home she is no longer scared of her nasty husband and the ending leaves it pretty clear that he is dead meat.This movie is very entertaining, and Kim Basinger is wonderful as the meek and mild housewife who becomes a ruthless killer.If you get the chance to, see it!.
Obviously, due to the fact that Kim Basinger is this masterpiece's executive producer, she wants you to feel bad for the poor white blond woman.
Then later Della tries to drive and talk on her cell phone at the same time, at one point turning completely around to check the cluttered back seat for the charger for the phone.She wanders the mall, sees an old friend from college, tries to buy stuff but her credit card is declined- gosh, maybe her husband is grumpy because he's going broke, but that's too complicated for the script to follow.In the parking lot she runs afoul of the most ludicrous gang in the history of films.
The parking lot is crowded as can be, people everywhere, and nobody notices.Della escapes in her car and rather than choosing a police station or well lighted safe area, she drives to a construction site, where she kills all four bad boys one at a time with simply the tools (literally) at hand.MAJOR spoiler ahead.She drives back home.
What I like about a movie such as this is that it shows how something seemingly so trivial as leaving a note on someone's car for taking up two parking spaces can turn into a disaster.
Kim Basinger stars as Della, a desperate housewife with a somewhat abusive husband, who gets into trouble while she's out at the local mall doing some last minute Christmas shopping.
There isn't much to this Flick except people being killed one after the other and that's pretty much it.Viewing this film the first time will have you scared for "Della" played by Kim Basinger, but as the movie goes on - you realise that they messed with the wrong b*tch.It is good to finally see that "Della" is no longer scared of her abusive husband by the end of the movie, and we see that her kids are what keeps her literally fighting for her life, that picture that one of the kids drew early on in the movie is very important to the story, we see that she looks at it at some point while trying to hide from the punks and that picture enforces her to stay alive by any means.I read some of the reviews and some people just don't get it, the scene where she tries to seduce the punk "Chucky" was clearly a ruse as she has a plan for his death, we see that when she is literally on top of him - she tries, nearly fails, but successfully kills him, there is no way she would be able to do that had she not pretended to let her guard down, "Della" was not a stupid woman, she knew that "Chucky" was talking crap about running away together, his plan was to kill her in revenge for his little buddies, and he was going to kill her anyway due to what he did to the security guard pre-car chase.The Film Score composed by Paul Haslinger is fantastic, it has that thriller/creepy vibe and i never get tired of listening to it on my Spotify playlist.
It's almost like writer/director Susan Montford got so caught up in the nuts and bolts of making a woman-in-peril thriller, she forgot about the emotional and thematic subtext of her own story and then tried to cram it all in at once.Della Myers (Kim Basinger) is a beautiful but aging woman who lives in a big house in a gated community with her twin children, Terri and Tammy (Luke and Erika-Shaye Gair), and her abusive dick of a husband, Kenneth (Craig Sheffer).