‘The Intruder’ is nothing out of the ordinary. It’s the same plot that you’ve seen dozens of times and something that you shrug off and forget a week after you watch it.

Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meagan Good) got a bargain on their dream house in Napa Valley, California, from the previous owner Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid). Peck won’t stop visiting the house, and Scott grows frustrated until things grow violent.

There isn’t anything special about the movie.

It feels like another Hallmark movie that we’ve seen already. It isn’t a surprise how things are going to end for everyone, but I continued to watch just to see how it was going to end.

The performance that Ealy and Good deliver isn’t impressive. It gets the job done, but there isn’t anything too special about it.

Quaid had to deliver a range of emotion for his character, but similarly to Ealy and Good, it was not that impressive.

The passive aggression between Scott’s friend Mike (Joseph Sikora) and Peck is one of the highlights of the film. It comes across early enough to where I was kind of interested to see what was going to happen, but the next time when they come into contact with each other is when Peck kills him.

Early in the film, we learn that Peck is obsessed with guns and hunting. This doesn’t play a major part in the plot, and it only comes back up once or twice at insignificant points in time.

The average acting performance isn’t all on the actors either. It also comes from the basic plot and script.

As we’re going through the rising action, it takes too long for something striking to happen, despite the short run time. The same instance of Peck coming to the house to do chores or just to check up keeps happening. If it happened once or twice, that would be fine, but the repetition of this cycle goes on for too long, which leads to the disappointing climax.

When Scott gets hit by Peck, it’s a relief that something finally happens, but I was already uninterested due to the reoccurrence of the previous events.

When the final showdown happens, it isn’t that exciting due to the poor buildup. The fight scene isn’t that intriguing, and the full circle moment with Scott pulling the final trigger kind of went under the radar.

Luckily, the movie ends there, and we aren’t left with a cheap ‘He’s still alive’ moment, but of course we’re left with a corny and cliche line to close out the film.

The movie is only a little bit over 90 minutes, which is an appropriate runtime for this type of movie. The film is able to accomplish all that it needs to inside of the time frame.

As someone who is neither good at predicting how films are going to end or sees a twist coming, the film was highly predictable.

We learn that Peck has a deep attachment to the home, according to his daughter, and the only reason he sells it is to pay off some debt, which we learn late in the film.

The question of why he kept coming back was on my mind the entire movie, but the answer I got wasn’t that good. I’m not sure that there would have been a good enough answer either.

There isn’t much that is necessarily bad about the movie, but there isn’t anything that is good with the movie.

It’s an average movie that is perfect for the average movie watcher to view. It’s good for something to fall asleep to or something just to have on for background noise.

Rate: 1.5/5