PREMONITION

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
TriStar Pictures
Grade: C+
Directed by: Mennan Yapo
Written By: Bill Kelly
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon, Nia Long, Amber
Valletta, Kate Nelligan, Peter Stormare
Screened at: Sony, NYC, 2/15/07
Opens: March 16, 2007

Now you see him, now you don't. Today he's there, drinking coffee and reading the paper, tomorrow
he's in a box and everyone's dressed in black. Next day he's in the office training his pretty young
assistant manager, but oops, the following day he's reported kaput in a terrible traffic accident. Back to
the black threads, off to the cemetery. Never fear. He'll be back in the sack in no time, but you'll miss
him again for a whole day, but there's a solution. In one of those South Sea islands, they engage in
polyandry. That's where each of the women is allowed to marry two men. If we adopted that custom, at
least in Louisiana, or let's say, try it out in Shreveport where the strange events are taking place in the
life of one Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock), she wouldn't have a dilemma. Then when one husband dies
for a day, she can romp with her second one. When the first guy returns from the dead, she gives
numero dos a day off–take the kids to the park or somethin', then enjoy a cup of joe with Jim (Julian
McMahon).

That's how I'd improve on Bill Kelly's screenplay. Would director Menna Yapo buy it? Would producer
Ashok Amritraj and the fellas in his company, Hyde Park Entertainment, consider it for Premonition 2?
No, you say? OK I tried. But it sure looks like someone had tried to piggy-back on the fine reputation
enjoyed by M. Night Shyamalan, whose "Sixth Sense," about a boy who communicates with spirits who
do not know that they are dead featured one of the great twists in modern cinema. Remember that
terrific restaurant scene involving a chat between one Anna Crowe who enjoyed an anniversary dinner
with her husband Dr. Malcolm Crowe, the former thinking all long that he was alive and well while the
pretty woman knew that she was talking to herself?

"Premonition" does indeed have a supernatural motif. The audience members sit on the edge of their
seats wondering: how is screenwriter Bill Kelly going to explain this one, that is, how is he going to let us
know just how this dead guy keeps coming back to life? We do get an answer, but it's not the clever one
we anticipate.

Essentially, "Premonition" is part supernatural and more a romantic drama--playing on the idea that most
young lovers are only vaguely aware of–that the passion we feel during the early days of erotic
abandonment will last, at most, two years. After that, the kids come, the mortgage falls due, the boss
breathes down our back, things cool down. Lucky thing to, because we really can't function in heat
every day. "Premonition" turns out to be more a story about the cooling down of passion than about the
thrills and chills of supernatural moments, though there are some fine moments involving Linda's going
off the wall, of being confined in an asylum by a psychiatrist (Peter Stormare) upon the orders of her
mother (Kate Nelligan), of receiving mysterious phone calls from her husband and seeking advice from
her best friend (Nia Long) and of justified suspicion of the pretty assistant manager (Amber Valletta) who
is being "trained" in the office by her now alive, now dead, husband.

Not Yet Rated. 97 minutes 2007 by Harvey Karten Member:
NY Film Critics Online