Written by Tom Moore
While it definitely misses the mark of being a smart, clever, and fresh home-invasion thriller, I still couldn’t help but see The Intruder as an enjoyably bad film that’s easy to have fun watching.
The film follows a married couple, Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meghan Good), as they move from the bustling San Francisco city life to the quieter Napa Valley. The two take over the house of Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid) and while he says that they can make the changes they need and that he’s retiring to Florida, he doesn’t leave and instead begins to creep out Scott. Even though Annie doesn’t see Charlie’s sudden appearances as a bad thing, Scott remains suspicious and as Charlie’s behavior takes a dark turn, these two realize how cruel Charlie can actually be.
Now, The Intruder is an easy film to dismiss as just another bland home invasion thriller and, to be fair, the film does a good enough job on its own showing why it should be. There were so many moments where I couldn’t help myself from thinking: “Can’t you try just a little bit harder to have fun.” Why can’t we have Charlie be hidden in the background of random shots just to build up his presence, give Charlie more murderous fantasies, and maybe, just maybe, give more ridiculously fun lines for him to say. All of these things seemingly appear in am doses, but the film ultimately takes itself too seriously most of the time to give its viewers anything but cheap thrills and easy filmmaking choices.
It also delivers flat lead characters to root for that made me cringe with how annoying and dumb they are. Ealy and Good put in performances that get the job done, but to their credit, they aren’t really given anything to work with. Scott is incredibly bland, with very few personality traits, and his role is simply for viewers to agree that Charlie’s crazy—specially considering that the film paints Annie as someone who’s dumber than anyone that’s ever been in a horror movie.
Seriously, she makes so many bad decisions that are painfully obvious that my audience became a chorus of yelling at the screen and the subtle slaps of people facepalming. There’s even a moment where Scott asks her to hear herself talk when she’s saying that Charlie isn’t that bad, but the rest of the film wants to take itself so seriously that these characters are just constantly a part of moments that are unintentionally funny.
The only one who’s clearly having fun in The Intruder is Quaid and he puts in such a devilishly fun performance that if this were his audition for the Joker, he might have a shot at getting the part. With each line he delivers and each moment that he cracks that eerie smile, Quaid just becomes more and more enjoyable. He’s clearly giving it his all and this performance is truly unlike anything I’ve seen Quaid bring to the screen. I will say that I wished that there was maybe some mystery as to whether or not Charlie is as crazy as Scott thinks he is, but then I realized how pointless that would’ve been. Going in, viewers are pretty aware that Charlie is a psycho and even the way we are introduced to him leaves be no doubt that Charlie isn’t all there. So, building up some kind of doubt around Charlie would’ve just been pointless and, to the film’s credit, it knows what its audience wants so it focuses on making Charlie more ridiculously fun to watch.
Honestly, even for all the complaints that are easy to make with The Intruder, there’s still a lot of fun to be had. Quaid is incredible, and Annie’s ignorance did leave me laughing. There’re even some sequences that allow Quaid to have some nice dialogue and create slightly tense moments, even if they feel obvious, but are still enjoyable to see anyway. It’s unfortunate that Scott and Annie’s “troubled past” is not even touched upon or made relevant in the slightest, but it leads to some unintentionally funny moments that I couldn’t help but appreciate in some way.
So, is The Intruder a movie that’s not made well and completely obvious? Yes. Will I always wonder what the film could’ve been if it tried just a little bit harder? Yeah. Does it still boast a fun time at the theaters and a Quaid performance that’s too damn fun to miss? Absolutely. Take The Intruder for what it’s worth: it’s truly an enjoyably bad film that’s deservingly hard to resist.
