By Wee Claire

Dolan’s Cadillac is based on Stephen King‘s best selling short story Nightmares and Dreamscapes. A normal, loving couple – Robinson (Wes Bentley) and Elizabeth (Emmanuelle Vaugier) - are caught-up in a sinister world of murder and prostitution as Elizabeth is witness to a gruesome murder in the Nevada dessert carried out by crime lord Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater).

The pair are quickly put into a protection program by the FBI whilst they try to convict Dolan of his gruesome mass execution. However, bizarrely, Elizabeth leaves their little protected apartment and is consequently murdered. Dolan walks free and it’s left to Robinson to avenge his wife’s death and set things straight. He must overcome not only his wife’s death but the fear and anxiety he faces as he devises the perfect ending for the ruthless Dolan, who all the while basks in his freedom and the glamour it beholds.

If you’re wondering why this story really isn’t hitting you like it should, it’s because that’s really it in a nutshell. This film really does feel like a short story that’s been stretched-out into a good hour and a half. Director Jeff Beesley directs the film in a very linear style, not really using many flashy tricks or quirky techniques, which would have been welcome here as the film is, at times, quite stale.

Wes Bentley's "go to" face as seen in American Beauty and Ghost Rider

And so we look to the cast for some semblance of excitement. Wes Bentley really proved himself as the odd disaffected youth in American Beauty. His socially disjointed performance really suited his character as a repressed teen living in a fairy-tale like suburbia. However, his performance here is very sub-standard. It seems that beyond American Beauty, Bentley can’t really manage more than a wide-eyed glare and a flare of the nostrils. Not really groundbreaking stuff. Even in the intimate moments with wife Elizabeth, he seems distant and disconnected. Perhaps this is the way he felt like playing the character, perhaps he’s just a bit rubbish. Judging by his role in Ghost Rider, let’s assume it’s the latter.

Slater plays the ruthless nasty man, Jimmy Dolan, pretty well. This is basically a role that was made for him and a role he’s played a thousand times before – it feels like he’s trapped in an actings timewarp, doomed to play the same role over and over again. It would be nice to see Slater push the boundaries a little.

But that’s the point – this isn’t a boundary-pushing film. It feels like there’s almost an admission from the offset that this was a made for TV movie. The film promises a “thrilling climax” but don’t hold your breath. If you’ve ever seen a Stephen King film adaptation (and unless you’ve been stuck in a closet somewhere in the middle of nowhere and have never glanced at a TV screen, chances are, you have), you’ll know to expect the usual from a typical “King climax”. Like most of his stories, the characters nearly always have a lesson to learn or a price to pay (see Misery and Thinner as examples).

Like a page from the "Crime Lords" section of a Next catalogue…

As a short story, this delivers perfectly and perhaps would have been better as a two-part TV series, however, with lackluster direction and tiresome performances from the main protagonists, Dolan’s Cadillac barely manages to raise a bushy, Bentley-shaped eyebrow. There’s never a moment you connect with the environment, the characters or the plot as everything about the film seems very straight and one-dimensional.

As with many Stephen King adaptations to screen, sometimes the stories just fall short and come over as nothing more than mediocre. There have been some classics but unfortunately, Dolan’s Cadillac will probably be doomed to the bargain bin graveyard and latenight TV movie shift. Sadly, this film is more “time filler” than “thriller”.

[rating:2.5/5]

Dolan’s Cadillac is released April 16th 2010