3-Way

(2004)

Scoop's notes this time, not Johnny's:

3-Way is a twisting noir thriller based on a 1963 Gil Brewer novel called Wild to Possess. It was directed by Scott Ziehl, who previously was at the helm for Cruel Intentions 3 and later directed the disappointing Road House 2.

Dominic Purcell plays Lew, a drifter who is down on his luck. In a flashback, the prologue shows Lew walking onto a power boat and discovering the dead bodies of his wife (Roxana Zal) and her lover, apparently not long after the wife left him. Having a criminal record and knowing full well that he will be the #1 suspect in the double murder, he takes the boat out to sea, sinks the bodies with the boat's anchor, then abandons the boat, rows back to shore in a dinghy, and disappears from mainstream society.

The story returns to the present. Now living off the grid, Lew is working at a loser's job, planting unauthorized signs on the side of a lonely highway in the dead of night, when he hears the unmistakable sounds of human fornication in the near distance. He investigates and finds a car parked in a secluded spot, its inhabitants (Ali Larter and Desmond Harrington) simultaneously having sex and planning a crime. The couple intends to kidnap a rich wife, then kill her after they get the money from her family. After Lew overhears the plot, he realizes that he can be a good Samaritan and an entrepreneur in one quick stroke, by employing a plot in which he re-kidnaps the rich wife, and uses her to get the money for himself.

That was a pretty good plot right there, and was probably complicated enough on its own, but the story gets much more complex, perhaps too complex. Someone from Lew's past shows up, gets wind of the plot, and wants in on the action. Lew's girlfriend (Joy Bryant) finds out about the plot and may or may not double-cross him. The kidnapped wife (Gina Gershon) is a real pain in the tush, and not at all grateful for Lew's having saved her life. The six main characters (the two kidnappers, Lew, Lew's girlfriend, the guy from the past, and the kidnapped wife) form and re-form alliances, often double-crossing each other, pretending to, or seeming to.

The excessively serpentine plot can be confusing, but other than that, 3-way is a pretty fair little mystery. Production values are solid, the acting is satisfactory, the plot is fairly interesting, there are no deal-killing plot holes, and the characters aren't completely generic. It's rated only 4.7 at IMDb, but I enjoyed it a lot more than that score would have led me to expect.

Ali Larter film clip (collages below)

Joy Bryant film clip (collages below)

Roxana Zal film clip (sample below)