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‘inheritance’: film review.
THR review: Lily Collins and Simon Pegg face off in 'Inheritance,' a dark mystery involving a corruption-fighting DA who's confronted with her banker father's sordid secrets upon his death.
By Sheri Linden
Sheri Linden
Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic
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As we all know from watching TV and movies (and from reading history books and newspapers), the super-rich are different from you and me. The endless pursuit and maintenance of wealth, status and power isn’t your usual 9-to-5, and along the way it’s not unusual to accrue one or two skeletons in the closet — or, in the case of the Monroe family in the would-be thriller Inheritance , a prisoner in the dungeon.
Said captive is played by Simon Pegg with a creepy inscrutability that’s the most interesting thing about the movie. Essentially a two-hander, the drama pits Pegg’s Morgan Warner against Lily Collins ‘ Lauren Monroe, scion of a New York dynasty and the horrified inheritor of her father’s nasty little underground secret. The monster/victim and princess/rescuer are surrounded by stick figures in this thinly conceived takedown of the ultra-capitalist set.
Release date: May 22, 2020
Now available on DirecTV, and adding digital and on-demand platforms Friday, Inheritance contains the kernel of an involving sins-of-the-father saga, its potential repeatedly obscured or undermined by the belabored, flat proceedings. The Monroes may be Manhattanites who are all about wielding influence, but the Roys of Succession they ain’t. Working from a clunky screenplay by first-timer Matthew Kennedy, director Vaughn Stein ( Terminal ) plays it straight, rather than tapping the premise’s extreme weirdness for flashes of cutting humor or Shakespearean tragedy.
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Instead we get the sleek Lauren imploring the wild-haired Morgan, “You’re chained up in a bunker and I want to know why.” She’s a shockingly young and comically tough-talking district attorney, involved in the high-profile prosecution of a Madoff-type Wall Streeter when her banker father (Patrick Warburton) dies unexpectedly. The patriarch leaves oodles to Lauren’s congressman brother, William ( Chace Crawford ), who’s in the midst of a reelection campaign shrouded in accusations of corruption, and to her mother (Connie Nielsen), whose only concern is that William win the race.
Lauren receives a paltry million, but there’s the bonus prize of a manila envelope, handed to her privately by the family’s lawyer, Harold (Michael Beach, suggesting nuances that the movie barely acknowledges). The contents: a thumb-drive video offering vague instructions concerning a secret that “must stay buried,” and a key to a subterranean chamber in the woods behind the Monroe mansion — in other words, a bizarro curse and a punishment, especially when you factor in the chained man who’s spent the past 30 years in that windowless space.
Morgan, with his demands, entreaties and Hannibal Lecter psychologizing, and even with the screenwriterly affectation of a memorized pie recipe that he’s given to reciting in moments of stress, is more believable, and certainly more dimensional, than the normies in Lauren’s life. Inheritance never brings her relationships with her husband (Marque Richardson) and school-age daughter (Mariyah Francis) into meaningful focus; while she increasingly ignores them, the narrative turns them into confusing distractions from the main action.
Lauren is a modern spin on an archetype — all power heels, career-woman slacks and fairy-tale-maiden beauty — and she’s on a consuming mission, trying to suss out the truth in Morgan’s explanation of why her father imprisoned him. Morgan knows things about her family that even Harold, the official guarder of secrets, doesn’t know. He appeals to her compassion and relative goodness, understanding that she’s the lone Monroe who hasn’t made mammon her god. Flashbacks underscore the point in thick magic marker: Lauren’s father berates her for “throwing it all away to be a civil servant”; over a chessboard he admonishes her to “win!”
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Whether Morgan is mere victim or a master manipulator, he’s counting on Lauren’s interest in justice and redemption, and Pegg makes the ogreish character’s moment-to-moment calculations engrossing, even when the story around him falters. Stein’s attempts to stir things up via intense flights of crosscutting only accentuate the crucial lack of tension, although he does build a certain level of suspense as the film moves toward its final revelations.
With elegant contributions from DP Michael Merriman and composer Marlon E. Espino, Stein has put together a polished, if dramatically bland, package. The Alabama locations (with a few establishing shots of New York) offer a generic opulence that deepens the disconnect between the world of high-level movers and shakers that Inheritance pretends to inhabit and the unconvincing one where it actually unfolds. The idea of a literal crypt of living family secrets has a movie-ready, over-the-top absurdity, but in this smoothed-over telling, there’s no dramatic juice, no impact — just pieces on a chess board, waiting to be maneuvered.
Production companies: Ingenious Media, Southpaw Entertainment, Redline Entertainment, Highland Film Group, Convergent Media Distributor: Vertical Entertainment Cast: Lily Collins, Simon Pegg, Connie Nielsen, Chace Crawford, Marque Richardson, Patrick Warburton, Michael Beach, Mariyah Francis, Rebecca Adams Director: Vaughn Stein Screenwriter: Matthew Kennedy Producers: Richard Barton Lewis, David Wulf, Arianne Fraser Executive producers: Santosh Govindaraju, Dan Reardon, Delphine Perrier, Henry Winterstern, Simon Williams, Daniel Negret, Anders Erdén, Seth Wulf, Jiayin Zheng, Rich Goldberg, Peter Jarowey, Gabrielle Jerou-Tabak, Joseph Lanius Director of photography: Michael Merriman Production designer: Diane Millett Costume designer: Shawna Tisdale Editor: Kristi Shimek Composer: Marlon E. Espino Casting director: Rich Delia
111 minutes
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Inheritance Reviews
Alas, in the third act Matthew Kennedy’s screenplay devolves into thriller-film cliches... and it cannot outrun the many improbabilities we’re asked to swallow to keep the yarn moving.
Full Review | Original Score: C | Oct 20, 2022
As entertaining as it can be, “Inheritance” never rises above its rather silly premise. It leaves too many questions unanswered, has too many head-scratching moments, and doesn’t quite muster the mystery or excitement it needs.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 22, 2022
Still, the story as a whole never becomes that alluring and it leads to weak characterizations, shallow themes, and an ending that values shocking reveals and tiresome exposition.
Full Review | Jun 5, 2022
Count yourself lucky that cinemas aren't open for you to waste your money on this.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 23, 2021
The silly plot twists and turns aren't the only things hard to understand in Inheritance. It boggles the mind that this could be billed as a thriller.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jan 30, 2021
Just awful.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 13, 2020
The characters are paper-thin and, even on paper, their motivations don't make much sense.
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 3, 2020
There's a grandly gothic tone to this thriller, which uses editing and music to add oomph to an extremely corny plot.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 2, 2020
Inheritance is a joyride, plain and simple.
Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 26, 2020
Most will find the denouement leaves a bad taste in the mouth, although fans of the genre might be more concerned with the film's lack of excitement than its skewed morality.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 15, 2020
The groundwork is laid down for a solid film, the actors all have the skills, but this is what happens when a weak script weighs down everything around it.
Full Review | Jun 8, 2020
A lackluster, ridiculous and poorly-acted thriller plagued by numerous red herrings
Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 5, 2020
Overlong psychological thriller has violence, language.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 1, 2020
Despite the interesting premise of the film and the fact that we get to see Simon Pegg in a departure type character this was not a film which lived up to my standards. Or, I would imagine, anyone's.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 1, 2020
As outrageous as it sounds, and the fact she wears stilettos to trek to the fort in the woods at night, and occasional clunkery, it's fun!
Full Review | May 29, 2020
Pegg's performance elevates the film as he creates a character with whom we vacillate, eliciting a myriad of emotions for this character.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 28, 2020
Inheritance is the cinematic equivalent of the paperback you leave at the beach or airport after you finished it, diverting but forgettable. Sometimes that's enough.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 28, 2020
Nothing works in this ludicrous thriller, which fails to compel us with its roster of monstrous characters. Lily Collins is woefully miscast; Patrick Warburton and Simon Pegg are criminally wasted.
Full Review | Original Score: 0/5 | May 26, 2020
After the dust settles in the end, it's amazing to look back at the bulk of Inheritance and realize how little of it ultimately mattered.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | May 26, 2020
A flat thriller that doesn't manage to register at all. [Full review in Spanish]
Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | May 24, 2020
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