"Hard Home" (2024)

by Joseph Perry

Normally here at “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict”, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. However, here and there they will be taking the reins in a solo outing. For this installment, it’s Joseph with a solo review of Hard Home by James Bamford and SP Media Group.

Synopsis

After the shocking murder of her daughter, Mary (Simone Kessell) turns her high-tech home into a trap for the killer (Andrew Howard as Diablo), initiating a deadly cat-and-mouse game where every move can be fatal.

The Good

In trying to come up with something positive here, Mary takes on a Batman-like vendetta from that superhero’s darker cinematic and comic tales involving The Joker, who in this case would be Diablo. She crosses moral lines that ask the question, is she any better than the murderer? But that has obviously been done before, and far, far better. Kessell does a nice job conveying the single-mindedness of her character, including some good physical action work.

The Bad

There’s too much to list here, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time doing so. Suffice it to say that Hard Home wallows in forced sentimentality when it isn’t pandering with Saw-lite elements, boasts one of the most generic cinematic serial killers in recent memory, spends too much time repeating the exact same flashback sequences, features stock characters from the inefficient law enforcement officers working the case (who Mary is several steps ahead of) to the feckless husband, and does itself no favors by having a variety of minority characters shown as either annoying, dangerous, ineffectual, or insane. The list goes on, but I won’t.

The Verdict