Derailed

Derailed is a 2005 American thriller/drama film based on a James Siegel novel by the same name adapted by Stuart Beattie. The film is directed by Mikael Håfström and stars Clive Owen, Jennifer Aniston and Vincent Cassel.

Derailed has also been adapted as a Tamil film, which released in February 2007, titled Pachaikili Muthucharam.

Plot

The protagonist, Charles Schine (Clive Owen), is an advertising executive married to a schoolteacher in Chicago. The introductory scenes of the movie reveal that Charles' marriage is deteriorating due to the stresses of caring for a teenage daughter who is seriously ill with diabetes, while the parents both have busy careers.

While on a commuter train, Charles encounters an alluring woman named Lucinda (Jennifer Aniston) — he had forgotten his fare and was about to be thrown off the train when Lucinda offers to pay for it. The attraction is mutual, and the two begin meeting more frequently. Ultimately, the two are intent on consummating their affair in a shady hotel. Just as Charles and Lucinda are about to have sex, an armed man later named as Philippe LaRoche (Vincent Cassel) bursts into the hotel room, beats Charles and brutally rapes Lucinda. Charles and Lucinda agree not to report the crime, as they do not want their spouses to learn of the affair. Shortly after the incident, Charles is blackmailed by LaRoche, who demands money in order to keep quiet about the situation.

LaRoche asks for $20,000, which Charles pays by taking money from an account meant to provide for the daughter's medical treatment. But a month later, the attacker calls again, demanding $100,000 — and he's calling from Charles' house. Charles rushes home to find LaRoche visiting with his wife and daughter, posing as a business associate.

Charles has a friend, Winston Boyko (RZA), who works in the mailroom at work and has done jail time. Winston admits to killing a man while in prison. Charles tells Winston about LaRoche and asks for advice. Winston offers to scare LaRoche away in return for 10% ($10,000) of LaRoche's demand. As they prepare to approach LaRoche in Winston's car, Winston shows Charles the shank (make-shift knife) he used in prison. He gives it to Charles for good luck. But LaRoche is a step ahead, and kills Winston in his car. The murder is almost discovered by a couple of corrupt cops flirting with a prostitute — and Charles barely escapes being implicated in the murder. Charles has to clean up the crime scene, so that he won't be suspected of the murder himself. He does this by driving the car into a nearby body of water.

The next day, Charles is questioned by a police detective named Church (Giancarlo Esposito), who is also Winston's uncle, about his coworker. Later, Charles receives a call from LaRoche — he's got Lucinda at gunpoint, and will kill her if Charles doesn't bring the $100,000 immediately. Charles does. The payoff complete, he and Lucinda say a tortured goodbye.

That night, Charles confesses to his wife that he has spent the money they had been saving for seven years, although he doesn't confess to having the affair.

Before another meeting with Detective Church, where Charles plans to tell the whole story, he decides he first has to let Lucinda know. He stops by her office, where he discovers she's not who she said she was.

Charles learns that Lucinda was in on the scam from the beginning; it was a setup. Lucinda and LaRoche are actually lovers. Charles tracks Lucinda and LaRoche back to the hotel, where they're setting up another mark. Charles breaks in and demands his money back, a gunfight ensues and it appears that everyone but Charles dies, including Lucinda. Charles slips away. On the way out — as the police are emptying the hotel safe — Charles sees his old briefcase. He reclaims it and finds that it still has his $100,000 in it.

The next day, Charles gets busted for embezzling at work (he scammed $10,000 to pay his coworker, Winston, to help him), and is sentenced to six months of community service, teaching at a prison. It turns out that LaRoche survived the gunfight, and is an inmate at the prison. He lures Charles into the laundry room, taunts him, only to find that Charles tracked him here on purpose, to finish the job. Charles stabs LaRoche to death with the shank given to him by Winston. He claims he was attacked and acted in self defense, but Church, Winston's uncle, isn't so sure. He hints to Charles that he knows it wasn't self-defense, but recognizes that LaRoche killed Winston and decides to let Charles walk away.

In the end, we see that Charles is reunited with his wife and daughter, with his daughter seemingly cured of her sickness (probably due to the money he got from the briefcase, he was able to afford to pay for her treatment).

Cast

• Vincent Cassel - LaRoche
• Clive Owen - Charles Schine
• Addison Timlin - Amy Schine
• Melissa George - Deanna Schine
• Jennifer Aniston - "Lucinda Harris" (real name unknown)
• Sandra Bee - Train Conductor
• RZA - Winston Boyko
• William Armstrong - Accountant
• Tom Conti - Eliot Firth
• Rachael Blake - Susan Davis (as Rachel Blake)
• Richard Leaf - Night Clerk Ray
• Xzibit - Dexter
• Catherine McCord - Avery Price Receptionist
• Denis O'Hare - Jerry the Lawyer
• Giancarlo Esposito - Detective Church

Reception

Box Office

Derailed opened in 2,443 theaters for an opening weekend gross of $12,211,986. The film made a domestic gross of $36,024,076 and an international gross of $21,455,000, giving it a worldwide gross of $57,479,076.^[1]

Critics

Derailed did rather poorly with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a rating of 21% and an average user rating of 4.6 out of 10.[1].

"Gripping while it lasts, but will be hard to remember in the morning" - Rich Cline (Shadows on the Wall)

"Derailed doesn’t crash and burn, but it should be more intriguing - it falls all over itself trying to be really clever – 3." Cherryl Dawson (TheMovieChicks.com)

"For those who have seen their fair share of films, this stuff is old hat." Jeffrey Chen (Reeltalk Movie Reviews)

"Derailed? More like DeNAILED."

Soundtrack

The Soundtrack album is on Wu Music & 36 Chambers Records.

1. "Johnny" - Rular Rah
2. "I Love You" - Thea
3. "Sabotage" - Maurice
4. "Winston's Theme" (Orchestral) - Edward Shearmur
5. "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover" - Grayson Hill
6. "Really Want None" - Free Murder
7. "I'm Sorry" - Maurice
8. "Charles' Theme" (Orchestral) - Edward Shearmur
9. "Better Man" - Maurice
10. "My Love" - Thea
11. "Better Man" (Guitar Remix) - Maurice

The track that plays during the trailer is called Offshore, by Chicane.

References In Popular Culture

In the TV show Pimp My Ride electronics expert Mad Mike references Xzibit's role in this film in every episode of the 2006 season.

Trivia

• The cellular phone that Charles Schine uses is a Nokia 6230.
• Metra, which operates the regional train system in Chicago, was paid $30,000 for advice and the use of some trains and stations for the movie.
• The movie was released approximately two months after the 17 September 2005 derailment of a Metra commuter train that killed two people and injured 80. Although no train derails in the movie, Metra tried unsuccessfully to get the title changed.
• The music video playing loudly on TV while Clive Owen helps his daughter study is "Trouble" by Pink.
• When Laroche (Cassel) goes over to Schine's house, he tells Schine's daughter in French: "Je m'appelle Philippe Laroche, comme une petite roche qui va bientôt baiser ton père par derrière." Translation: "My name is Philippe Laroche, like a little stone who will soon screw your father from behind." Then, he tells her that in English, it means: "Like a little stone that's rolling down the river."
• The film was originally titled "Sidetracked" as evidenced by the blue notebook LaRoche delivers to Charles at the end of the film.
• The gun Xzibit's character uses is the Israeli-made Desert Eagle.
• Error: Through out the movie, each time the Chicago Metra train pulled into Union Station, the pa announcer kept saying that it was the end of the red line. The CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) uses color coded routes, and the Metra system uses actual named routes (Metra Milwaukee District North). Additionally, the station list over the loud speaker at the beginning - including Rogers Park, Ravenswood, Clybourn - identifies this as the North line, while the train station shown (Union Station) serves the south and west lines; the north line ends at a station two blocks north of this one. Union Station is identifiable by its classical marble and limestone architecture. The same part of that station was used for a scene in The Untouchables where Eliot Ness prevents a baby carriage from rolling down a flight of stairs.

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