I hope you're not getting sick of all the reviews :) TV Guide Online A restrained, adult thriller from one-time wunderkinder Sam Raimi, whose rock 'em/shock 'em EVIL DEAD pictures once raised the bar on gross-out horror movies, and screenwriters Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson (ONE FALSE MOVE). Small-town widow Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) is raising three boys in sleepy, insular Brixton, Ga., supplementing her survivor's benefits by utilizing the gift she inherited from her beloved grandma. Annie has "the sight" — she can peer into people's futures, though frankly, she's as much of a good listener and sensible advisor as a psychic card reader (Thornton reportedly based the character loosely on his own mother). Her clients include battered wife Valerie Barksdale (Hilary Swank) and high-strung mechanic Buddy Cole (Giovanni Ribisi), who's clearly damaged by ugly childhood experiences he can't face. In addition to worrying about their problems, Annie's got some on the home front: Valerie's volatile husband Donnie (Keanu Reeves) is threatening Annie's family, and her oldest son, Mike (Lynnsee Provence), still dealing with his father's death, is in trouble at school. Called to meet with Principal Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear), Annie has a disturbing vision of his fiancée, flirtatious rich girl Jessica King (Katie Holmes): Annie sees her standing in a pool of water, her legs putrid and weed-tangled. Annie keeps her council, but when her distraught father asks for help after Jessica vanishes, Annie has another vision that reveals her whereabouts. Something about what she's seen doesn't quite fit, though, and Annie's further investigations uncover secrets even she knew nothing about. Though the last half hour slips into genre clichés, Blanchett's quietly radiant performance anchors even the most outrageous plot developments, and she's well-supported on all sides — as a brutal redneck with a sweet Southern-boy façade, Reeves is little short of a revelation. And while the film overall is more concerned with mounting menace than edge-of-your-seat shocks, it delivers a couple of stunners. — Maitland McDonagh --------------------------------------------- Film.com In The Gift, Cate Blanchett plays Annie Wilson, a widowed single mother who supports her three sons by using her psychic powers to do readings for the residents of her small town. She has a steady clientele and the local skeptics, for the most part, keep their disbelief tactfully tucked away behind smiles. At one point, a character says to Annie that she's the soul of their town. The same could be said of Blanchett in the film's lead. She brings a haunted quality to the role that is simply mesmerizing; her Annie has a poetic sadness that is, in part, due to the enormous weight of her gift, to what she sees and has learned of human nature. She's developed a deep empathy for those who are suffering or damaged, making her psychic and confessor, mother-figure and village sage. Blanchett projects a wounded dignity that anchors her character even when the film slips into silly hokum; she's never less than fantastic, and as such manages to keep the film on course. One of Annie's clients, Valerie (Hilary Swank) is a victim of spousal abuse who can't seem to break away from her abusive husband, Donnie (Keanu Reeves.) When Donnie realizes that Annie is counseling his wife to leave him, he breaks into her house, assaults her and threatens her sons. The local sheriff, a good friend of Donnie's, dismisses Annie's plea for help. It's no surprise that Swank is as good as she is in a small but pivotal role. What is astonishing is how wonderful Reeves is in the part of a violent boor. He oozes a recognizably human evil, staying on the right side of caricature and therefore being genuinely terrifying. (It's interesting that his best performances have been as the blank-slate Neo in The Matrix and as the face of evil, here.) When the wealthy fiancé of the school principal is murdered, Annie is called upon to help in the investigation. What she uncovers seems to point the finger at Donnie. But a host of plot twists and red herrings raise the question of his innocence. Did he really do it or not? The audience figures it out long before the movie answers the question, but it's to director Sam Raimi's credit that the tension never slackens as a result of us figuring out the mystery. He brings horror film dynamics to the tale that off-set the symbolism that can be a little too obvious and the "visions" that can be plain hokey in execution. The major flaw in the film is that it follows co-screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade a little too closely in both theme and arc. Thornton clearly has "issues" with male authority figures, who are corrupt, evil or inept - or all of the above. Young boys and women are particularly at the mercy of these mangled men. And that point is driven home repeatedly in The Gift. Another weak (but not fatal) link is Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), the mentally challenged but good-hearted town mechanic; he's a sentimental, romanticized creation. (The talented Ribisi should really take a break from this type of role for a while; he's great at them but his filmography is already crammed with the type.) Buddy is clearly a character that Thornton identifies with and that affinity comes through so strongly that we can't just dismiss the character - his pain and broken heart shine through the familiarity of his outline. In the end, The Gift is about grace and redemption. The scary-movie score and taut editing give the audience a lot of popcorn thrills, but the movie resonates at all because of the deeper, more moving concerns at its core. -Ernest Hardy --------------------------------------------- Dark Horizons Billy Bob Thornton hasn't been getting much respect lately. His most recent films have been delayed and delayed and we were afraid that they might never come out. Well, fortunately, that's beginning to change. His [and writing partner Tom Epperson's] screenplay for a thriller about a psychic has been turned by director Sam Raimi and a killer cast into a really creepy horror flick. Annie Wilson(Cate Blanchett) is a widow with three kids who makes ends meet as a "reader/adviser" in an Alabama suburb. Most of her clients are people who need a psychologist more than a psychic. Valerie Barksdale(Hilary Swank), for example is being battered by her loutish husband Donnie(Keanu Reeves), and the strange Buddy (Giovanni Ribisi), has issues with his loutish father and considers Annie to be his only friend. Things start going bad when she's called into school. It seems that her eldest son is been in another fight, and , Wayne(Greg Kinnear) the principal is getting worried about him. But as the meeting is coming to an end, Wayne's fiancee Jessica King(Katie Holmes) arrives, and Annie has a really icky vision of her covered with slime and algae. Brushing that experience off, she heads home, only to be harassed by Donnie, who thinks Annie's a witch and should be burned at the stake. As this situations get worse, the visions get worse also. Then, Officer Huggins(Stuart Greer) shows up and tells her that Jessica is missing. So, Annie has to use her gift to solve a murder while trying to get Donnie off her case, two subplots which make for one scary movie. The person sitting next to me was clawing at my arm and that doesn't really happen with her very often The cast is one of the best assembled for a recent cheap independent. Blanchett is even better here than she was in "Elizabeth" and Reeves give his best performance since "The Devil's Advocate." Sam Raimi's interpretation of Thorton and Epperson's scrpt is flawless. Just the right mix of thriller and soap opera. It's well worth the price of a ticket

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