'The Glass House? starts off well, then disappoints

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"The Glass House"|ret||ret||tab|

Directed by: Daniel Sackheim|ret||ret||tab|

Starring: Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane, Bruce Dern, Stellan Skarsgard|ret||ret||tab|

Rated: PG-13|ret||ret||tab|

If you hear a shattering sound surrounding the world of movies this week, it's more than likely the noise of critics and audiences throwing stones at Daniel Sackheim's psychological thriller "The Glass House." |ret||ret||tab|

What starts out as an interesting premise featuring a talented ensemble cast, slowly but surely turns into a mishmash of Hollywood histrionics, playing out more like a TV movie of the week than a major motion picture.|ret||ret||tab|

This is probably to be expected as director Sackheim is a veteran of television and is making his film debut here.|ret||ret||tab|

Writer Wesley Strick has done some fine screenplays, including Scorsese's remake of "Cape Fear" and "Return to Paradise," but here he runs out of clever ideas fairly quickly, and by the third act of "The Glass House," everything is simply too apparent.|ret||ret||tab|

Sixteen-year-old Ruby (Leelee Sobies-ki) and her kid brother Rhett are the children of fairly well-off producers for public radio (a plot point public radio producers may have trouble believing from the start). |ret||ret||tab|

When an automobile accident takes their parents' lives, Ruby and Rhett find themselves in the care of Terry and Erin Glass, friends of the family but not well-known to the kids. |ret||ret||tab|

Ruby and Rhett also learn from their parents' estate lawyer played by the ever-on-the-edge-of-psychosis Bruce Dern that they've inherited $4 million. |ret||ret||tab|

Since they're both minors, Terry and Erin will be controlling the fortune. |ret||ret||tab|

The Glasses' house is true to the characters' name and the movie's title.|ret||ret||tab|

It's a cold steel-and-glass affair perched ominously atop a cliff overlooking the Pacific. It's a far cry from the warm and loving home Ruby and Rhett grew up in. |ret||ret||tab|

And things don't bode well from day one.|ret||ret||tab|

Despite the enormity of the house, Jack and Erin have decided Ruby and Rhett should room together, not the most pleasant prospect for a 16-year-old girl, I'm sure.|ret||ret||tab|

Ruby also notices that Jack seems to pay an inordinate amount of attention to her, and not necessarily in a "fatherly" fashion. Another unpleasant prospect.|ret||ret||tab|

As the days go by, things get stranger. Jack has taken to turning on the security system, keeping the kids virtual prisoners, and one evening Ruby finds Erin, a physician, passed out with a syringe in hand. |ret||ret||tab|

The next day it's explained to the kids that Erin is a "diabetic." |ret||ret||tab|

Also of some concern to Ruby are the thugs who seem to pay frequent visits to Jack. |ret||ret||tab|

He owes someone some big money, and Ruby has reason to believe that Jack intends to use her fortune to cover the Glasses' debts.|ret||ret||tab|

When she manages to call a state social worker, she' surprised to find she no longer shares a bedroom with Rhett and all seems well and proper when the welfare lady pays a visit to the Glass household. |ret||ret||tab|

Obviously Ruby's phone calls are being monitored.|ret||ret||tab|

Bruce Dern's character adds a lot to the mix. |ret||ret||tab|

Anyone who's familiar with him knows that more often than not, he's up to no good, so the tension factor is increased anytime he's on screen here. |ret||ret||tab|

Diane Lane, as Erin, does a great job as does Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard as Jack Glass. |ret||ret||tab|

Skarsgard is a veteran of Ingmar Bergman's stage company and first gained notice in Hollywood as a principal in Lars von Trier's masterpiece, "Breaking the Waves." |ret||ret||tab|

Young Leelee Sobieski manages to hold her own quite well with her older, more experienced teammates, and she infuses her character with believability. |ret||ret||tab|

She's not too far removed from being 16 and obviously remembers what being that age can do to one's psyche.|ret||ret||tab|

But for all the great performances, "The Glass House" eventually disappoints. |ret||ret||tab|

For starters, the previews gave away far too many pertinent plot points, so the typical viewer already knows something foul is afoot. |ret||ret||tab|

And while the set-up is great, director Sackheim and writer Strick seem to have rushed to get the film into production when a few more months of rewrites might have been in order to keep some sort of originality flowing. |ret||ret||tab|

"The Glass House" isn't necessarily a bad film but one that lets us down after getting off to a promising start. It may fare better upon its eventual home video release, as it seems more suited to TV than to the big screen.|ret||ret||tab|

(Jim Wunderle works at Associated Video Producers and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.) [[In-content Ad]]