Dolan’s Cadillac (2009) Review

Dolan’s Cadillac (2009) Review

Dolan’s Cadillac is about a middle school teacher (Wes Bentley) whose girlfriend (Emmanuelle Vaugier) witnesses the ruthless gangster Dolan (Christian Slater) in the process of a human trafficking deal. The couple goes into the witness protection program, and try to get pregnant. Then in a moment of pure stupidity, she goes out in the middle of the night to buy more pregnancy tests, leaving the safety of their guarded hotel room behind, and is blown up in their car by Dolan. Of course, teacher dude is devastated and angry, so he buys a gun and tries to kill Dolan, but that doesn’t work, so he starts working for a road maintenance crew and traps Dolan by having him drive his car into a hole, where he buries him alive and has his ultimate revenge. 

You may be wondering why I just summarized the entire plot of this movie. Well, if 1408 is an example of the potential success in adapting a Stephen King short story to film, then Dolan’s Cadillac makes the case for the exact opposite. This not a horror movie, nor is it a thriller, because it’s not horrific or thrilling in any ways. What it is, is a bland, benign, and extraordinarily boring crime/revenge movie. 

 

Where do I start with this thing? Well, how about with the characters. Not a single one is likable. Dolan is a supreme asshole; that’s just his character, he’s the bad guy. But he isn’t the kind of bad guy that’s entertaining, more just annoying. The teacher (I can’t even remember his name) keeps getting haunted by visions of his dead girlfriend, and this just makes him more irritating and dumb, despite his admittedly clever plan to trap Dolan. That aspect of the movie is actually one of the only parts that isn’t totally bogus, and I’m guessing because it was thought up by Stephen King for the short story upon which this is based. 

I’ve read the short story. I didn’t find it all that remarkable, but what I do find remarkable is how badly they expanded on it for this screenplay. The story only had two characters, really, Dolan and the narrator (the teacher). All new character additions for the screenplay suck. There was also a lot of exploration of how he set up the trap for Dolan, but in the movie it’s skipped over in favour of having the entire last twenty minutes just be the teacher and Dolan’s back and forth conversation before he buries him. It could not have been more uninteresting.

Not only are the characters bad, the acting is also surprisingly terrible. I say surprising because, all of these actors have been pretty good in other things, but not in this movie. There’s nothing redeemable about them. Yeah, sure, the idea of going to such lengths to get revenge is interesting, but it’s been done in other movies and done much better. Here, it’s just generic. That brings me to my other major complaint. 

This movie looks cheap. Not surprising, given it was made as a direct-to-DVD feature (wondering why you’ve never heard of it? That’s why), but I’ve seen a number of direct-to-DVD movies that didn’t look half as cheap as this one. The cinematography, camera work, sound design, all of it is shoddy—one of the only things that isn’t is the special effects, which still are nothing special, I’m just surprised they weren’t as bad as pretty much everything else. 

There’s nothing else to say, except to sum up that Dolan’s Cadillac is one of the worst movies to be based on a Stephen King story that I’ve seen. It’s dull, dopey, and utterly forgettable. Perhaps I missed something, perhaps someone who isn’t familiar with the source material would enjoy more. Whatever the case, I can’t recommend it at all.