Grade (F)
Jennifer Lopez suffers from a clearance sale version of fatal attraction in this uninspired thriller.
“THE BOY NEXT DOOR” tells the story of a married woman separated from her cheating husband who falls for the charming, much younger boy next door. She soon finds her indiscretion taking a dangerous turn that will affect her career as well as the safety of her family.
This film gives you pretty much what you would expect, like, exactly what you would expect. From the set-up, the following situations derived from the generic plot to the unrelatable, romance novel characters, you can see where this script is going long before it finally gets there. The performances are not particularly bad but the writing was so simplistic that the characters never develop any layers, and fail to pull your attention into the already thin plot.
I will give credit to Ryan Guzman, he delivered a great deal of emotion and energy to his performance but they simply filled out one generic scenario after the other, and were not enough to carry the enjoyment. Jennifer Lopez was decent in this one as well, but she really did nothing to inspire and genuine intrigue in her role, or make the most of her material.
As the script progresses you can predict what will soon follow and without building any intrigue I found myself simply sitting back and going through the motions like the recycled story-line. It was hard to keep my attention focused on what was happening because each passing scene lacked any real ambition to bring something new.
Giving this film your full attention was also not very needed as the second-act progresses as you would expect and eventually leads to the inevitable (anti)climactic ending that you will also be able to see coming after about fifteen-minutes in. There was nothing horrible about this movie but it failed to show and true creativity to make it memorable.
In the end “The Boy Next Door” is something to put on while doing some chores but not worth an evening of your undivided attention. The characters are all bland and the performances feel lifeless in a story that delivers something more like a made-for-TV movie and not a wide-screen release.
– Starring –
Jennifer Lopez, Ryan Guzman, Ian Nelson, John Corbett, Kristin Chenoweth, Lexi Atkins, Hill Harper
– Directed By –
Rob Cohen
Time: 91 min
MPAA Rating: R (For violence, sexual content/nudity and language)