A Major Disappointment

A Disappointing Continuation

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

1. If anyone couldn't figure out, early on, just who the villain is in this story, I feel sorry for them.2. Set up - Victor (Jay Baruchel) moves into an old apartment building. He's the nice guy! Louise (Emily Hampshire) is a sweet girl with two nice cats, and she also lives in this old apartment building. Spencer (Scott Speedman) is a bit of a mysterious fellow as he is confined to a wheelchair and lives on the SECOND FLOOR in this old building that is without an elevator!!! Valérie Langlois (Anne-Marie Cadieux) also lives in this old apartment building and hates Louise's cats.3. From the opening of the movie the running background story is about a serial murderer on the loose in town. One day Louise's cats are found dead. Valerie finds this most funny! It doesn't take Louise to long to figure out who did her cats in, and she wants revenge.4. Louise comes up with a plan of revenge on Valerie and that is where the title of this movie comes into play. Victor and Spencer turn out to be good neighbors for her and her alone. Her plan of revenge works thanks to Victor and especially Spencer secret life.5. I enjoyed this flick!

On several movie site I visit, there had been a buzz about an independent Canadian murder mystery film, that was supposed to be quite a thriller with big twist at the end. It sounded like the perfect movie for me and I couldn't wait to see it! Good Neighbors is about an apartment building in Canada that is getting a new tenant named Victor (Jay Baruchel). Victor immediately sees that something isn't right about the new place and soon learns that everyone is on edge because of a serial killer on the loose. A serial killer that I was able to identify ten minutes into the movie. How in the world can anyone, much less a movie fan, call this a thriller with a twist in the end? The killer was obvious from the very beginning and I'm willing to bet the average fourth grader would agree. As for the notion that this is a thriller? Come on, a thriller is supposed to have you on the edge of your seat, not falling asleep in it! The story was slow, sloppy, and predictable, but what about the acting. I generally like Jay Baruchel, but he is a mess in this film. Baruchel is way out of his element here and would probably do best sticking to Apatow comedies. The only bright spot in the film is Emily Hampshire, she's been around a while, but has never been in anything big. Hampshire was terrific and is really the only interesting character in this film. Good Neighbors is a huge disappointment and anyone who tells you otherwise can't be as big a movie fan as they proclaim to be. I can deal with slow moving, I can live with some boring parts here and there, but a painfully predictable story with very below average performances is a recipe for disaster.

Good Neighbors (2010)A Canadian indie thriller with spritely charm. Yup! The cast is small, the concept cute and macabre (both), and the filming and editing first rate. This is the latest installment of what is a new genre, mostly American, where a bright, lighthearted tone keeps a relatively serious theme tipped on edge the whole time. It's almost as if the filmmakers are tired of high drama movies, from true horror films to action adventure to even the moving dramas that win the awards. It's also, though, a product of budget, and making the most of small resources. "Good Neighbors" is in many ways a perfect small movie.Imagine the most common of situations--a small apartment building where two main characters each have an apartment. One is a disgruntled young woman with two sweet cats, her only real friends. The other is a charming handsome man in a wheelchair, with a cynical and mean interior. Then a newcomer arrives, all sweetness and kindness.Meanwhile, a serial killer is in the neighborhood, and the woman in particular follows the story for her own self-preservation. Because it's a tightly constructed movie you suspect that one of the three has something to do with the killings, but maybe not, as a fourth apartment dweller makes her viciousness known. This is the turning point, and things get complicated in a funny/tragic way in the last quarter of the film. As convincing as all these characters are (most of the time), there are few holes here and there. One of them is the series of crimes, and the minimal presence of the police (and rather unconvincing tough detective who looks better than he sounds for the part). In a way we're not supposed to believe or care about the crimes themselves, but in another way, the crimes become, increasingly, the whole movie. Thank goodness for the director that the Montreal police are apparently pretty relaxed about gathering evidence.Never mind the nitpicking, however. If you like the "indie" feel of movies like "Timer" or even "Juno" (which is better overall), this one will really take you in. It's a "delight" in the best sense of that word.

I very rarely post reviews of even the most outstanding (or, say, outrageously bad) films on IMDb, and one major reason is that (in general, i.e. usually) the films I see have either been reviewed hundreds of times or seem to have been fairly reviewed by the relatively few who've contributed their thoughts. This, however, is an exceptional case! The majority of this film's other reviews so far posted here are either negative or lukewarm, which is a tragedy for the prospective viewer, at least if she takes that to be a reason for passing this clever, immensely enjoyable gem over! I find it kind of shocking that there aren't more (at this time, there is only one other) extremely positive reviews of this film here. The only thing I can come up with to explain that fact is this: Good Neighbors is pitched at a fairly high level; the humor is subtle and often perverse, depending upon multiple layers of irony and extensive character development; the drama/suspense does NOT depend upon much mystery qua whodunit (although the movie "plays by the rules" in that it gamely keeps the viewer open-minded about the killer's identity, to this viewer the killer's identity was rather overtly apparent from the opening scenes...I second guessed myself at times, but...) but rather on the tension between what the viewer knows and what the characters don't, all of which means that less astute viewers might not notice most of what's going on in this film (several people here have called the movie 'flat', which honestly makes me inclined to call them 'dull'). I don't want to say anything about the actual plot here, but for those of you who enjoy intelligent films (e.g. Coen Brothers films, as another reviewer aptly noted) even though the proper appreciation thereof will engage more of one's mind than more escapist fare, this is pure indie treasure. For a third world country, Canada sure produces more than her share of cultural jewels...(jokes)!