Impulse - Thoughts

As part of my pursuit to cover all kinds of movies, not just the obviously familiar owing to large scale promotional activities, I recently watched Impulse. It’s a made for TV movie, starring Angus Macfadyen, and Willa Ford, that was released in April 2008. A hot young manager of an ad agency is married to an older accomplished psychologist. Their life is almost perfect, but the age difference proposes problems. Jonathan is preoccupied with his work, and Claire needs passion and excitement. Based on the suggestions of her colleague, Claire puts into play a fantasy, which ends with more than a few loose ends.


Going into the movie I set my expectations low. An unknown crew, an amateur cast, and a probably limited budget restricted the possibilities of the outcome. Without giving away too much, it’s a pretty straight forward case of mistaken identities and a psychopathic doppelganger. There was a good measure of seduction and promiscuity to ensure that the movie didn’t sink altogether. Though classified as a mystery thriller, it was never over the edge or extremely intense. The pace of the movie was slow, and at times it was hard to believe that this was set in LA. While the movie didn’t bring anything new to the table, what it set out to do, it did decently well. The plot was okay, performances believable, and there were no glaring errors or gaps in the narrative process.

Angus Macfadyen did a surprisingly good job of playing the somewhat lost, always preoccupied Jonathan Dennison. His mannerisms, expressions and body language were just perfect. To those trying to place him, he’s played recurring roles in the Saw movies, and been a routine guest star on season 2 of Californication. Willa Ford’s acting career has been very limited, but you may recall her from her hit single I Wanna Be Bad released in 2001.

Considering I was unable to place my hands on a DVD, I was forced to watch and review an XviD rip. I religiously keep away from DivX and Xvid movies, as they’re lossy compressed video formats, good for sharing movies on the internet, but lacking the ability to maintain high color vibrancy and other similarly splendorous video characteristics. That said it was a high bitrate rip, with AC3 sound intact; so it wasn’t a complete loss. The DVD is available in the US, but the movie’s unheard of elsewhere. Video was good for most part, and was pretty clear. Being a recent release I’d expect for the DVD release to be near flawless US TV release grade. No post production color filters were used; color tones and lighting remaining standard for most part. The audio track was a Dolby Digital 5.1 track, and for a movie of this type I must say I couldn’t think of anything that was missing. Dialogue was clear, the general mood and ambience acceptable, and the use of a musical score sufficient.

My Recommendation: Dicey (Worth the watch as long as you don’t go in expecting Fatal Attraction)