Permanently disheveled author Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is not having a good year. He is in the middle of an acrimonious divorce from his wife (Maria Bello) who has moved on with her new lover (Timothy Hutton), his new novel has stalled, and some weird stranger named John Shooter (John Turturro) is accusing him of plagiarizing a story from seven years ago. What starts as an annoyance escalates to stalking, arson, and murder.
Mort is a completely unsympathetic character, which is why I think this movie fails. He is a petty, petulant coward and at no point are you rooting for him. That's why the third act twist falls apart. If you don't have any goodwill towards him, you can't be betrayed because you never believed him in the first place. I'm not going to spoil the twist, if you want to know it's a quick Google search, but the film pretty much hammers you with it anyway.
I did not enjoy this movie. Like I said, the narrative structure is weak and the ending is frankly a ripoff of King's better story, Thinner. If you must, it's streaming on Amazon Prime.
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