Safe Haven
Lasse Hallstrom
Is novelist Nicholas Sparks running out of ideas? This adaptation of his 2010 work strongly suggests that the answer is yes.
Katie (Julianne Hough) is on the run and decides to settle down in a small seaport town. She meets Alex (Josh Duhamel, both right), a widower with two kids, and gradually falls for him. Meanwhile, a strangely obsessive cop (David Lyons) flagrantly flouts the rules to track her down.
The blandly pretty and pretty bland Hough (Footloose, 2011) cannot anchor the film and her slowly burgeoning romance with Duhamel is a snoozefest.
How it all goes down during a Fourth of July parade is supposed to be dramatic and exciting but is instead exasperating and forced. Worse still is the schmaltzy ending with a lame, gimmicky twist.
Worst of all, for film buffs, is to realise that Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom was once responsible for lauded fare such as My Life As A Dog (1985) and The Cider House Rules (1999). His previous adaptation of a Sparks novel, Dear John (2010), had its problems but it was more watchable compared to this.
(ST)