I like Lily Collins and I’m a big fan of Simon Pegg so I figured Inheritance was worth a watch – and it was not.
Collins stars as Lauren Monroe, a district attorney who is the eldest child of the wealthy Monroe family dynasty. When her father Archer (Patrick Warburton) unexpectedly dies, she learns of her inheritance – $1 million and a key to a mystery location. She discovers it unlocks the door to an underground bunker which contains her father’s big secret – a man named Morgan (Pegg), who claims he has been held captive there for 30 years. He insists he is innocent and deserves to be let go – but how does she know if he’s telling the truth?
Besides the actors, I gave Inheritance a whirl because the premise sounded exciting and thrilling. I was intrigued to see how it would play out, and in the beginning, I had high hopes, but these were dashed by a weak script, overacted performances and a pretty predictable outcome. It has a muted and grey colour palette to make it seem bleak and serious but almost verged on comedy when it reached its cheesy, cliched, and overdone conclusion.
I’m genuinely amazed these two leads signed up for this. To make up for the shortcomings in Matthew Kennedy‘s script, they overdo it entirely. Pegg was clearly committed to the role as he transformed his body by losing a drastic amount of weight, but you don’t notice this very much because you’re too busy looking at his ridiculously long, grey wig. I was surprised by his casting at first because he plays such a different character to usual, from his look and demeanour to his speech (a slow American drawl). I would have enjoyed him playing such a twisted character if it had been well written, whereas he is sold short. All the characters are paper-thin and you have only the basic notion of who they are. Collins brings the emotion and a lot of shouty “who are you?!” style lines, but that’s about it, while Chace Crawford and Connie Nielsen don’t make much impact as the supporting cast.
You can tell which direction this is going in from the get-go but director Vaughn Stein still manages to create a sense of mystery and tension towards the end, despite the plot holes and basic characters. However, that all goes to hell in a final showdown that is OTT, ridiculous, and so very bad. To say this doesn’t stick the landing is an overstatement.
Don’t be fooled by the top cast and intriguing premise. You’ve been warned!
Available for digital download now and on DVD from 13th July
Rating: 2/5
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