Here is something you absolutely must do in case you decide that you have to see the new film from Fox Faith, Fox pictures new line of Christian safe films, ‘Thr3e’. As soon as it is over, turn it off and put in another movie or watch the news or play a video game or read a book or something that will busy your brain. If you don’t, you will be forced to contemplate this little thriller and if by chance you found you liked it (I didn’t, but that’s me) then after twenty seconds of contemplation it will all fall apart and you will not like it anymore. You’ve been warned.

Police profiler and author Jennifer Peters (Justine Waddell) is running feverishly down the street with cell phone in hand as the crazed killer is doing one of those ‘get here in sixty seconds or the kid dies’ kind of deals. The crazed killer is a cat known as ‘riddle bomber’ or something and he has kidnapped Jennifer’s brother, duct taped him inside a car with a bomb strapped to his chest. The killer tells Jen over the phone that one car door will detonate the bomb, the other will open the door freely and allow Jen to free her bro and she has thirty seconds to choose or else it blows regardless. Instead of opening one of the doors, Jennifer just runs around the car screaming. Now her brothers’ mouth is taped shut and he’s mumbling something quite profusely, but I’m going to assume it’s probably along the line of (Christian friendly style now) ‘Witch, just open one of the FREAKIN’ DOORS!!!’ She doesn’t, the car blows up, her brother dies and somehow Jennifer escaped this devastating explosion with a scratched hand.

Three months later, seminary student Kevin Parson’s gets a weird phone call while he’s driving home advising him that he has 3 minutes to jump out his car or it’s gonna blow, and to confess his crime. At first he thinks it’s stupid joke, but to be safe he jumps out and sure enough his Rabbit is toasted. The police question Kevin, Jennifer observes with her hand still in a bandage from that horrific explosion a couple of

months back and she thinks she may have a chance to finally get this riddle bomber cat. Still, Jen wants to know why the bomber is targeting this relatively harmless seminary student. An old friend from Kevin’s past, Samantha (Laura Jordan) shows up and lends her assistance since as an insurance investigator she has her own detective skills, but neither Laura or Samantha seem to trust each other much and now the riddle bomber has stepped up his attacks on Kevin, completely dead set on killing Kevin and everything close to him.

Now as far as the movie goes, it starts off well enough and does have things that go boom. Jennifer’s investigation of the killer and why the killer has targeted Kevin is fairly intriguing, at least at first, but things start to seriously go down hill with the introduction of Kevin’s dysfunctional family led by his aunt Princess played by Three’s Company alum Priscilla Barnes. She was so over the top and so comedic in what seem to be her interpretation of Carrie’s Mother that whatever credibility the film had gained up until that point was completely lost. Combine that with Kevin’s uncle, who for some reason sports a Shriners Fez, and his severely mentally challenged 300 pound cousin and ‘Thr3e’ has now become a thriller parody. Every once in a while the scenery will cutaway to a closeup of our crazed killer who apparently used to watch a lot crazed killer shows from the seventies because that’s how he acts, screaming at himself, bouncing his dome against the wall, pacing the floors and what not. After we meet the family, ‘Thr3e’ enters a long terminable lull that adds another unnecessary twenty minutes to running time. However, I can say I didn’t have a problem with the actors though as Blucas, Jordan and Waddell do admirable work considering what they had to work with, which was very little. We can take solace in that ‘Thr3e’ was at least better than the last novel by author Ted Dekker translated to film in the truly awful ‘The Visitation’. It would seem that director Robby Henson, who directed both films, is learning on the job. However, one thing I’ve learned watching this director’s style is that he sure loves the shadowy character running in front of the camera move. He’s like the KING of that move as he’s done that in both movies like fifteen times combined. I see that Henson has completed a third Dekker novel called ‘House’ and we fully expect it to be better than the previous two movies, because it can’t be much worse, but he does have a sweet gig. I think it’s time I start reading some of these Dekker novels to find out if it’s the source material that’s the problem in translating these films to the screen.

Since this is Fox Faith, there were no wandering breasts, blood or profanity to found, and even if the film were better I can safely say I didn’t I miss them in the least, which lets me know that filmmakers put breast blood and profanity in movies to distract us from how crappy these things truly are. And I can’t be mad at that.

END OF REVIEW - PLENTY O’ SPOILERS!!!

The REAL problems start when we find out that Kevin’s personality has not only split to form the copy cat bomber Slater, but also his childhood girlfriend Sam due to his Krazy Aunt’s treatment of him. First question is how did Kevin garner all of this complex bomb making knowledge, and considering the explosives, where did he get them? A little minor police work would have told the cops that Kevin was out buying explosive material. So Sam was ALSO a figment of Kevin’s imagination, but Kevin talked to Sam quite a bit, out in public in the presence of cops no less. Didn’t they think it odd that Kevin was talking to himself and affectating a feminine voice to respond to himself? I would think that odd. Imaginary Sam submits a book sample to the lab to test it for prints and the lab leaves a message on the answering machine that the prints for everything are the same. How did imaginary insurance investigator Sam submit for prints in the first place, and now imaginary Sam and real Kevin are in two places at the same time somehow as ‘she’ talks on the phone to Jennifer in the car on her way to confront ‘Kevin’ who is having a showdown with ‘Slater’. As a boy Kevin got into a fight with ‘Slater’ who blackened his eyes. Did Kevin punch himself like that? It really happened because Krazy Princess said he came home with black eyes that night. In truth, there are so many more gaping holes that it would take another ten pages to go over them all, but I think you get the point. By all means, explain them to me.