"The Surprise Visit" looked like a film school project shot in a country estate in a single take.
The narrative features the tawdry action of a drug addict seeking to rob a home for jewelry in order to take care of his pregnant wife. Fan favorite Eric Roberts, a national treasure, plays the father Hugh, who berates his son when he comes to him for help, then asks Mrs. Dixon to give the young man a job. Humiliated, the son plans the robbery, only to discover Mrs. Dixon's daughter in the home. He never learned that the kind employer was willing to hire him.
The film is primarily one long and unconvincing chase scene through the wilderness. Mrs. Dixon's daughter Juliette claimed to have won hide-and-go-seek contests when she was growing up on the estate. But she is hopeless in evading the clumsy, slow-footed Casey and his pregnant girlfriend Belle.
The denouement made no sense. Are we to believe that a year later, Belle and her daughter are thriving on the beach? Somehow, the filmmakers sought to develop a theme of the importance of "family" in this train wreck of a film.
The narrative features the tawdry action of a drug addict seeking to rob a home for jewelry in order to take care of his pregnant wife. Fan favorite Eric Roberts, a national treasure, plays the father Hugh, who berates his son when he comes to him for help, then asks Mrs. Dixon to give the young man a job. Humiliated, the son plans the robbery, only to discover Mrs. Dixon's daughter in the home. He never learned that the kind employer was willing to hire him.
The film is primarily one long and unconvincing chase scene through the wilderness. Mrs. Dixon's daughter Juliette claimed to have won hide-and-go-seek contests when she was growing up on the estate. But she is hopeless in evading the clumsy, slow-footed Casey and his pregnant girlfriend Belle.
The denouement made no sense. Are we to believe that a year later, Belle and her daughter are thriving on the beach? Somehow, the filmmakers sought to develop a theme of the importance of "family" in this train wreck of a film.