As such, Miriam travels to India to retrieve Ruth under the pretense of her father being gravely ill. In reality, the family has hired PJ Waters (HARVEY KEITEL), an American expert at cult deprogramming, to intervene. Of course, once Ruth's back home, she's furious about this turn of events, but eventually concedes to meet for three days with Waters.
Although he has successfully deprogrammed 189 people before her, Waters has a few concerns. For one, his normal assistant is unavailable and he now only has Ruth's inexperienced family - including her brothers Tim (PAUL GODDARD) and Robbie (DAN WYLLIE) and sister-in-law Yvonne (SOPHIE LEE) - to help him.
He also finds himself immediately attracted to Ruth, but decides to proceed anyway with his three-day course of isolation, provocation and confrontation, all of which should lead to eventual success. Thus, they head off to the middle of nowhere and begin.
Ruth is understandably reluctant and doesn't want to participate, but PJ's methods seem to begin working on her. Things change, however, when Ruth realizes PJ's attraction toward her and decides to do some sexually related manipulating of her own.
As the three days progress and PJ's girlfriend, Carol (PAM GRIER), shows up to help the Barron family, Ruth and PJ continue in their battle of wills where the tables are constantly turned and the certainty of who will emerge victorious remains in doubt.
Some violence is present (people striking others) with some bloody results and we hear and see a woman urinating. The film deals with cults and their influence on impressionable, young people, and brief, archival videotape footage is shown of such members who committed suicide (we see the bodies). The protagonist and others smoke, while drinking also occurs, as does some brief drug use.
Bad attitudes are present in the form of the two main characters getting involved sexually with each other (one cheating on his girlfriend, the other doing it only to manipulate him), while other cheating and bad attitudes are also present. A brief scene showing a young man stepping from the roof of one moving car to another beside it (as both speed down the highway) may be enticing for some kids to imitate.
Should you still be concerned about the film's appropriateness for yourself or anyone in your home after this brief summary, we suggest that you take a closer look at our more detailed content listings.
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(1999) (Kate Winslet, Harvey Keitel) (R)
Alcohol/
DrugsBlood/Gore
Disrespectful/
Bad AttitudeFrightening/
Tense ScenesGuns/
Weapons
Moderate
Mild
Heavy
Minor
Minor
Imitative
BehaviorJump
ScenesMusic
(Scary/Tense)Music
(Inappropriate)Profanity
Mild
None
Minor
*None
Extreme
Sex/
NuditySmoking
Tense Family
ScenesTopics To
Talk AboutViolence
Extreme
Moderate
Minor
Moderate
Moderate
CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO
Then read OUR TAKE of this film.
(Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below).
Reviewed January 7, 2000 / Posted February 11, 2000
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