Main cast: Maryam Hassouni (Vera Tribbe), Mike Beckingham (Robert Atkinson), Dougie Poynter (Steve Atkinson), Nigel Barber (Herbert Summers), Suan-Li Ong (Jun Hui), Togo Igawa (Lau Hoi Ho), Daniël Boissevain (Albert Tribbe), Tom Wu (Yong), and Derek Jacobi (Dr Hobson)
Director: Andy Newbery
The best way to enjoy The Host is to not know anything about it at all prior to watching it. This is because there isn’t anything really noteworthy about it once one gets over the “Gotcha!” twist that shows up at about mid-point of the movie. However, it is going to be hard to avoid mentioning that twist in order to review this movie properly. Hence, somewhere in the next few lines are major spoilers – avert your eyes and press the back button now.
If you are still reading, well, I’ve warned you and don’t blame me if you read something you don’t want to know about this movie.
Okay, we start off with Robert Atkinson. He works at the bank for years, but has never received a promotion or has any money. Part of this may have to do with the fact that he’s a gambling addict, heh. He is sleeping with his married colleague. He’d love to make their relationship more meaningful, but she won’t leave her husband because Robert has no money. Meanwhile, only his brother Steve is talking to him; the rest of the family consider Robert a pariah.
Of course, he isn’t going to get these people to change their minds about him when he, in a moment of frustration, steals some money from a client’s deposit box and uses the money to go gamble. He ends up in debt after playing against the wrong guy, and yes, the whole thing is a set-up for smart people looking for a mule.
Drug kingpin Lau Hoi Ho will pay off Robert’s £12,000 debt and sweeten the deal with another £100,000—enough money for Robert to pay off all the debts he has—if that man would nicely help bring a suitcase to Amsterdam for an exchange. Robert has an idea of what is inside the bag, but hey, he is desperate.
Unfortunately, once in Amsterdam he is intercepted by agent Herbert Summers, and Robert can avoid arrest only if he would cooperate with the law and help them nab Lau. Robert agrees, of course. And then he checks in at Vera Tribbe’s house (his hotel room is double-booked, and the guy there refers him to Vera’s place), and this is when the movie abruptly morphs from crime drama to a gender-bent version of Psycho. That’s right, Vera is Norman, Robert is that woman that dies after checking in, and his brother Steve soon takes over as the main guy when he attempts to find out what happens to Robert.
Is this a bad thing? Well, okay, Steve is played by the guy from the group McFly, but he’s actually alright here, that ridiculous hair of his notwithstanding. Mike Beckingham is Simon Pegg’s brother, and it is amusing to see that he is long in the face where Mr Pegg is rounded all over. He is the only male source of fanservice here, as he shows off some bulging crotch in his boxer-briefs and some rear end nudity, but aside from that, his role as the idiot loser doesn’t give him much opportunity to demonstrate his acting prowess. Indeed, the cast here doesn’t have much to do beyond just going through the motions. Their roles here are merely pieces on the chessboard, so to speak, in order for the movie to pull off that Psycho plot development towards the middle of the movie.
After having been smacked in the face with that twist, there isn’t much else here to go “Ooh! Fascinating!” over. The mule plot is not just basic and uninteresting; the whole set-up suffers from some plot holes now that I think of it. Vera is underdeveloped as a Norman Bates-type. She is in the movie, and then her role in the plot is over, the end. This character is bland and comes off as menacing as soft tofu. I mean, sure, she tortures and kills her victims, but her motivations are straight out of a cliché checklist and her awkward. monotonous brand of “crazy” is unintentionally hilarious.
In the end, The Host is one of those movies that I would watch once, go “Oh, that’s… interesting, I guess!”, and eventually, end up thinking, “Well, that’s nowhere as clever as these people would like to believe!” before forgetting about the whole thing altogether in a few short days.
