Kurt Russell, Madeline Stowe and Ray Liotta star in this early 90s thriller that puts three stellar actors into a halfway decent script and hopes that their charisma and charm will see it through. For the most part, it succeeds, not least of which because they are all great actors.

Russell and Stowe are Michael and Karen Carr a happily married couple, she’s a teacher, he’s a developer, but they are both shaken to their core when someone breaks into their house and holds a knife to Karen’s throat.

A pair of cops, Officers Pete Davis (Liotta) and Roy Cole (Roger E. Mosley) arrive to investigate, and Pete takes an immediate shine to Karen (I can’t blame him, I’ve crushed on Stowe since I first saw her in Stakeout) to the point where he becomes obsessed with her.

After an initial burgeoning bro-mance between Pete and Michael, Micheal begins to see Pete as trouble, and he is, cancelling Micheal’s credit cards, putting a boot on his car for unpaid parking tickets, and infiltrating and intimidating almost every part of their lives.

Who can you turn to for protection when the person supposed to be protecting you is the threat?

It’s a great cast, it’s nicely shot, and Russell and Stowe are captivating and for a 90s thriller, it works. Liotta is appropriately menacing, and Russell is just as cool as he’s always been, and continues to be. All of them work with what they have, bringing their characters to life, as Pete becomes more and more dangerous and Karen realizes that Michael was right about him.

As Pete becomes more and more of a threat, things get increasingly tense and nothing and no one will stop Pete from getting who and what he wants. He sets things up to take care of Micheal and then sets the stage for the film’s finale as the Carrs finally confront Pete in a life-or-death struggle.

It’s pretty standard fare, the only thing that really elevates it is the actors in the film. You know how things are going to play out. It’s very predictable, you know there’s going to be a last-moment violent payoff just when you ‘think’ everything is going to be fine.

There’s a score by James Horner, and usually, you can pick out his work, but this one just doesn’t stand out. It feels like a waste of his talent.

I remember this one when it hit video, and it was insanely popular. Watching it now, it’s good, but it wasn’t as captivating as the rental business would have had me believe at the time.