Well this film is certainly… a very interesting experience. This is something very different for all members of this cast. You’ve never seen Katherine Heigl, Patrick Wilson, or Jordana Brewster in anything like this before. Home Sweet Hell is a pitch black comedy about a domineering psychopathic wife who is determined to kill the woman her husband has been having an affair with, with the help of her husband who is unsure about it all. It’s tough because there are some really good aspects of this film that work very well but unfortunately there isn’t enough to make it quality entertainment.
Katherine Heigl is the best thing in this film, she nails the evil to the core darkly comedic tone of her god awful character. Her role might as well be Satan honestly. She is an unhinged murderous person who will go to any length to get what she wants. Heigl is able to play this with such ease and I commend her for nailing it. Jordana Brewster is another positive. Brewster, who I’ve only ever seen in the Fast and Furious franchise, gives a worthy performance here as the “other woman” who chases after Patrick Wilson quite aggressively. She handles the sexually blunt nature of her character quite well. The final positive is that there are a handful of comedic line deliveries that are amusing and hit the right darkly funny tone. Other that that, the rest is just pretty mediocre honestly.
The script is not nearly as funny as it should be and really needed another run through to make the comedy come a lot more frequently. Like I said, there’s really only a handful – a small handful – of lines that amuse, and all of them are Heigl’s. There’s a good many lazy gags that attempt to elicit laughter but they just aren’t done well. One of those gags has to do with a man being coerced into snorting meth and acting all crazy because of it and it just falls flat.
Another thing that unfortunately doesn’t really work is Patrick Wilson. Wilson is a good actor, I’ve seen it in films like Insidious and Little Children, but he just can’t make this work. It’s not all his fault, his character is so awful and pathetic that I’m not sure anyone could’ve played this part well. It’s hard to even feel sympathy for his character because he goes along with whatever heinous things his wife wants and then cries about it… it’s cringeworthy and uncomfortable.
Jim Belushi is in this too, as a pretty meaningless supporting character and he isn’t good either. His character is awfully written, pointless, AND Belushi himself just seems like he’s phoning it in, just cashing a check, and that’s no fun to watch. There’s also some cheap effects at the very end that look obviously fake. Honestly it’s tough to talk at length about this film because it really is that mediocre. The script doesn’t contain any lines that you’ll remember… a lot of it is lazy.
The only thing you’ll remember is Heigl’s performance. I wish this performance from her was in a better film! The idea for this film is great but the execution is just poor and underwhelming. At the time of it’s release, some accused this of being misogynistic and while I do definitely see why…. I just think that this film is actually an exercise is pure nihilism. Home Sweet Hell isn’t so much anti-female as it is anti-humanity. Now let’s be clear, films where everyone is awful can be great… IF DONE WELL, unfortunately this is not.
Home Sweet Hell should have been a much better film than it ended up being. With a funnier script and better male characters, this could have been a home run!
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