VIDEO: The trailer for Obsessed.
As a troubled husband and wife, Idris Elba and Beyoncé Knowles don't lack for chemistry and credibility. You can't say as much for the film in which they play these roles (executive-produced by Beyoncé and her dad), which recycles The Temp and Fatal Attraction and makes them look like masterpieces.
The only suspense involves whether Elba's Derek is really having an affair with Lisa (Ali Larter), the office temptress, who's made it her mission to move in on him. Why she's obsessed is never explored, and neither is anything else about her one-dimensional femme fatale. It's just the set-up for the inevitable catfight between Larter and Beyoncé — and even that gets botched.
Director Steven Shill and the doltish dialogue don't do much to diminish the film's overt homophobia and misogyny. But Derek toils in a glass tower that might have housed Ken Lay and Enron, so maybe Lisa's rampage is directed against the culprits behind the financial crisis.
