Review of Let's Kill Ward's Wife (2014) by Kris C — 28 Dec 2014

This film is a perfect example of how a hilarious & possibly smart plot can be sabotaged by poor writing. The whole cast seemed confused with the proceedings, well except for Patrick Wilson, probably the other reason I decided to check this film out, hoping this would turn out like Stretch (2014), an apologetic mad caper.

You cant help it but blame the Actor/ Writer/ Director Scott Foley for that. Like I said the premise is good - a bunch of guys are sick of one of their friends being abused by his piece of shit wife, so they joke about killing her and relieve him of his burden.

But then one of them actually does it. We have an ensemble cast here, almost all of whom are on-screen at the same time. In all honesty, I can't even remember most of their names. I know Ward (Donald Faison), because it's his wife, Stacy (Dagmara Dominczyk), who winds up dead.

And I know David (Patrick Wilson), because Patrick Wilson is the most famous person in this film. Oh, and there's Geena (Amy Acker), who is married to Tom (Scott Foley), because Foley also wrote and directed, and Amy Acker is, well, Amy Acker.

That's actually a good chunk of the cast, and really the only important characters. Everyone hates Stacy, probably because she's presented as the worst person possible. She says and does the worst and meanest things that you can think of given the situation, and by the time she inevitably dies in this film, you'll be glad.

The male characters talk about killing her, but only one of them goes ahead and does it. It winds up being kind of an accident, although the accident doesn't kill her, so he deliberately finishes the job.

Now Stacy is dead, and everyone has to figure out what to do with the body. Nobody in this film reacts like you might expect if someone was murdered and you had to dispose of the body. There's very little shock, and far more acceptance than one might expect.

"Oh, you killed her? Well, I wanted to do that, too, so it's okay." I mean, Stacy was an awful person, so it's understandable, but the complete lack of human compassion is startling.

That's a bold outline for a movie and it's generally going to fall into two categories, highly successful and buttressed with a large online P.R. campaign, or complete disaster. Guess which one this falls under? A topic like this, with blatant murder as the subject of throwaway humor, needs to be handled with finesse and insight at the writing stage.

It's stuck between slapstick and the TV series 'Friends'. Their are going to be no spoilers here, they kill an annoying woman then dispose of the body, with not a solitary laugh in 81 minutes.

There is no punchline and there are no jokes. And that's a pity because the name of the movie and the trailer suggested a good one for manly men - finally ridding the air of some nagging bitch. But even then they chickened out and made sure there were token female characters in on the act.

Despite not having an A-list cast, the actors in Let's Kill Ward's Wife blend well into their characters. Sure, the film doesn't exactly require a lot of stretching or depth to the performances, but a cast you don't know particularly well is actually kind of beneficial in making the situation feel more realistic.

Patrick Wilson, for example, stands out and almost doesn't feel like he belongs simply because he's more recognizable than most of the other cast members, oh there is Donald Faison from Scrubs also, but who remembers him in that anymore.

On the whole Lets Kill Ward's Wife is not subtle enough to be intelligent, not bold enough to be hilarious, it's hard to describe just how crap this movie is. I rather watch something else.