Knock Knock ... Keep this film out

I DON'T know whether to laugh at the plot of writer-director Eli Roth's Knock Knock, or Keanu Reeves' stilted acting in it.
   The latter is not known for his acting as he was a pretty boy, so watching him play a doting dad playing monster with his kids is a painful experience. And watching him scream "I'm a good father ... You f----- me" is even more excruciating.


   However, the film's biggest mystery is the two prostitutes who make it their goal in life to ingratiate themselves into the lives of husbands whose families are out of town. What is their goal in tempting men to open their doors to them?
  If Roth's intention is to show that faithful men lose their bearings once two sexy women in wet clothes appear at their doorsteps, then he has failed miserably.
   I don't see the reason why the two women, after having sex with the husband and then get chased out of the home, have to return to the home and terrorise him. Don't they have anything else to with their lives?
   It also doesn't help that Reeves can't emote to show the noose tightening around his neck.
   Reeves, 51, plays 43-year-old architect Evan Webber, who lives in a beautiful home with Spanish-born sculptor-artist wife Karen (Ignacia Allamand) and their two children. Their home looks like something out of Architectural Digest, what with the sculptures outside the home and the walls inside adorned with artsy-fartsy stuff.
    Roth spends time showing Evan as a dutiful dad still horny for his wife after 14 years of marriage. His family leaves town during the Fathers Day weekend while he stays back to work.

Reeves enjoys himself with Ana de Armas (left) and
Lorenza  Izzo in 'Knock Knock'.

  Viewers would assume that the Webbers live in an exclusive area, but there's no sign of security.
     So, the fact that Genesis (Roth's wife Lorenza Izzo, who also appears in his other film, The Green Inferno) and blondie Bel (Ana de Armas) can appear at his doorstep and claim that they got a wrong address is dubious.
    Karen has already teased her husband about his gallant ways with women, but I still find it unbelievable that he would welcome two women, albeit dressed skimpily, into his home just because they claim they are lost, are wearing wet clothes because of the rain, and that they want to use his phone.
   They say that he looks good for a 43 year old, and sure enough, he's bringing out his vinyl collection and telling them bedside stories about his former vocation as a DJ.
    They get flirty with him, and this should be more than enough for him to kick them out of his house.
  But he's silly, and the movie insists that he has to dilly-dally and while away his time with them.
   Genesis and Bel come back for seconds the following night. They have him wrapped around their fingers and what transpires turns out to be a night of horror for him and for viewers.
   Viewers have to sit through the women's kinky games and Reeves' uninspiring delivery. He insists  that he's innocent and that the women are wrong to torture him.
   Also, the women unintentionally cause someone's death and then conceal the body, but they're nonchalant about it, and the film leaves this part unanswered.
 
2 out of 5 stars