Movie Review: Swimfan

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Stars (Out of 10): 3

One Word Summary: Unthrilling

Full Review:

      Swimfan is about a high school student with a troubled past, but an exciting future. He has the talent to be an Olympic swimmer, he has a great girlfriend, and boatloads of friends. Enter Madison Bell, the new girl. As her relationship with Ben turns from friendship to romance, her obsession grows. When he tells her he's not interested in her, weird things start happening around him. Ben's accused of everything from using steroids to murder. And Madison Bell is responsible for it all... he just has to prove it!

    Erika Christensen gave a relatively good performance. She was freaky when the story needed her to be freaky, she was seductive when the plot needed her to be seductive. The only problem was, her good acting was overshadowed by a bad movie. She put her efforts in the wrong place.

    Swimfan is dead between the ears. It's plot is sloppy, its dialogue is about as clich馘 as it can get, and most of the cast was way too old to be playing high school students (or at least to convince me that they were). A thriller, is supposed to scare you... or at least keep your attention. I wish I had a remote while watching Swimfan so I could've paused it and taken a nap every couple minutes. When you see as many movies as I do, Swimfan's attempts to thrill seem very unconvincing.

    If you've seen a trailer for this movie (Click Here If You Haven't) then there's no reason for you to actually see Swimfan. The trailer gives away everything! All they don't tell you is how the movie ends, but the fact is, it ends like every other half-assed attempt at a teen thriller or horror movie! The movie's thrills were unthrilling enough, but coming into the movie already knowing everything that was going to happen for the next hour and a half made it even harder to shock me.

    The only emotion that this movie pulls is "How could he be so stupid". Swimfan, made me feel like I had the whole script in my hands, and I just wanted to stop the kid from being so stupid. Everyone in the theatre knew that Madison was trouble, except for him. Maybe that was the intention of the director, to let you in on the joke and have you hoping for Ben. But whatever the film makers were going for, they missed terribly!

Conclusion:

Yahoo! Movies Description:

Thriller

1 hr. 25 min. Ben Cronin is a high school senior who has just about everything going for him. He has a great girlfriend, Amy, and a swimming scholarship to Stanford in the works. Ben's life seems almost perfect. Then Madison, the alluring new girl in town, develops a crush on Ben, although she
says she just wants to be friends. But it seems that Madison has an odd way of defining "friends." As Madison's obsession with Ben grows, his life begins to unravel. First, he is kicked off the swim team for using steroids that he swears he's never taken. Then, his best friend runs into troubled times and all clues lead to Ben. Finally, Ben is accused of endangering Amy's life and putting her in the hospital. Ben suspects that Madison is behind all of it. With no one on his side, Ben dives into investigating her past and finds some incredibly dark secrets. Convinced that Madison will do anything to ruin his life as well as the lives of those around him, Ben decides to set the record straight.