When the Bough Breaks could have offered some cheap thrills, but it ends up a neutered, paint-by-numbers snoozefest, not even worthy for cable syndication. If only someone had hit the gas on the script. Let’s just cut straight to the part in the third-act climax where, after tussling about in John and Laura’s lake house (which they spoke about incessantly throughout the film, so no surprises there), Ashley stands, bleeding and vengeful, shotgun in hand, in front of John and Laura in a car, right in front of her: “I am sick and tired of this bitch!” Laura yells as she inevitably guns it. A surrogate mother harbors a deadly secret desire for a family of her own with the husband who is expecting to raise her child. Let’s not even get into how Ashley ruins John’s ascent to partner at his law firm, or the aforementioned cat. After exhausting all other options, they finally hire Anna (Jaz Sinclair), the perfect woman to be their surrogate - but as she gets further along in her pregnancy, so too does her psychotic and dangerous.
She begins to have feelings for John, resentment for Laura, and maybe this thing is a scam after all when detective Roland ( The Wire’s Williams, looking bored beyond belief) uncovers Ashley’s past of sexual abuse, murder, and chicanery. John and Laura Taylor (Morris Chestnut and Regina Hall) are a young, professional couple who desperately want a baby. He is dispatched posthaste, and Ashley is settled into the couple’s extravagant home in New Orleans. Of course, Ashley comes with a sleazy, abusive boyfriend Mike ( Sons of Anarchy’s Rossi, who is incapable of telegraphing anything other than trouble). Successful lawyer John (Chestnut, exhibiting an acting range limited to three emotions: seductive, annoyed, and pissed off) and successful chef Laura (Hall) have been trying for years to have a baby to no avail, so when ideal surrogate Ashley (Sinclair) comes along, they jump at the chance to inject their last viable embryo into her. In a bit of Irony, Danson played a Child. Rotten Tomatoes, home of the Tomatometer, is the most trusted measurement of quality for Movies & TV. The characters are true to the novel, the interaction between Ted Dansons Delaware and Richard Masurs Milo is at times humorous and others deadly serious.
You think that house cat they keep cutting to is going make it through the movie? Oh, to be that cat. This movie based upon the Jonathan Kellerman novel of the same name (which introduced the Alex Delaware character) is an outstanding work. This latest iteration in the “psycho third wheel” genre offers up absolutely no surprises, and is probably one the most dull and predictable films in this wasteland filmgoers call September. I don’t know about you, but when I settle in for a nice big slice of the latest Fatal Attraction knockoff, it had better take things above and beyond the hundreds of Lifetime movies that have come before it.