The Woodsman A Lackluster Bore from Start to Finish

Nicole Kassell's first major film depicts Kevin Bacon as Walter, a pedophile recently released from prison after 12 years, who moves back to his hometown and attempts to start a new life.

The film co-stars Kyra Sedgwick as Vickie, whose walking anti-male chauvinist cliché could make Ingrid Newkirk recoil in fear and cover her testicles. David Alan Grier also stars as Walter's boss. I don't have much to say about his character, since he speaks only three times in the entire movie.

Before I review this film, I'd like to go ahead and say I hate everyone in it. I absolutely despise every single person on the cast. It was as if they took my top 10 worst actors and put them in a movie together. I foretell biased ranting.

Shortly after Walter is released, he gets a job at a lumberyard, and an apartment, which conveniently is across the street from an elementary school. I fail to see the logic in this, but apparently his landlord is an illiterate, drooling moron. Walter plays the "creepy guy who doesn't say a word because he is a pedophile" gimmick to aT, which offends some of his coworkers.

Shortly after he gets settled in to his job, he meets Vickie, a woman with testical fortitude who isn't afraid to speak up for herself. This concept is tired and old, and only amplifies my hatred for Kyra Sedgwick. The experience as follows is Walter's attempt to get his life back together with the help of Vickie and no one else.

The entire plot is boring, contrived and Nicole's inexperience shows. I often felt like I was being spoonfed filmschool-dropout lackluster morals and scenarios, if only to get the point across that pedophiles have feelings. The movie's pacing is awful, and coincidentally stars two musical rappers - Mos Def and Eve - who will surely bring the MTV crowd to the stands.

I must admit, however, Mos Def's acting isn't terrible, especially since he doesn't have much to work with in this awful script. One eminent notion throughout the entire movie was Walter's obsession with childhood innocence. He'd often visualize a red rubber ball bouncing toward him or away from him, so as to imply he's reminded of the little girls he molested. Again, this is nothing more than amateur rubbish being forced upon us, with no real meaning to uncover.

Overall, I'm not impressed with this film. It's definitely Kevin Bacon's best acting yet, but that doesn't say much. I'd rent it if you have a lot of money and you've seen everything else in your rental store, but if you're not in that situation, don't bother. I guess one redeeming feature of this film is that I DID feel bad for Kevin Bacon's character at the end, but not as bad as I felt for Nicole Kassel as a director.

**
That's two stars, right there.