Film Review: ‘Case 39’ With Renee Zellweger Should Have Remained Closed

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Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – A film where a little girl screams as her foster parents attempt to brutally murder her can be a tough sell to theater owners. Perhaps that’s why Paramount’s “Case 39” with Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper has been sitting on studio shelves for years since it closed production in 2006. How do you market a film that chooses to turn the world of foster parenting into a horror thriller?

The horrible decisions that were made on day one might inspire you to wonder how the hell “Case 39” ever got made but the bad choices didn’t stop there. Miscast, poorly-directed, and just-plain boring, “Case 39” never clicks into place. There are rumors that they went back and re-cut the film in attempts to try and change the plot wholesale before releasing it stateside but that should give you some idea about what they were working with. No matter how many times you re-shape a piece of crap, it’s still a piece of crap.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Case 39” in our reviews section.

Filmed back when Renee Zellweger was still a star and before Bradley Cooper became one, the Oscar-winner stars as a foster child case worker who describes herself as “just not mom material.” Yes, this is another one of those films in which a working woman tries to have a family life too and pays the price; typical Hollywood misogyny.

Our doomed heroine stumbles across the case of a sweet girl named Lily (Jodelle Ferland) stuck in the aforementioned horrific situation. She breaks down the door with her police friend Mike (Ian McShane) just as they’re about to kill their foster child. Are they crazy? Pure evil? Or should the fact that they barricade themselves in their own room every night mean something?

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Case 39” review.

Case 39
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures