Commandments

Losing his wife, his house and his job in a series of disasters, Seth Warner (Aidan Quinn) decides to test God by systematically breaking every one of his Ten Commandments, in the hope of receiving some sort of sign as to The Mighty One's plan. Naturally, he falls for his sister-in-law (Courteney Cox), which doesn't go down too well with her spouse (Anthony LaPaglia), but which handily kills two commandments with one stone (coveting thy neighbour's wife and adultery), en route to the biggest one of them all: "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Perhaps Commandment number 11 should be "Thou Shalt Not Waste Such Good Actors On Material Like This", as poor Quinn, Cox and LaPaglia struggle with a film that hovers between hysterical drama and bizarre black comedy. In the hands of a director skilled at the darker side (Se7ens David Fincher, for example), this could have been an atmospheric religious fable. Unfortunately, with writer/director Daniel Taplitz (best known for TV movies Black Magic and Nightlife) doing the honours, it misfires on almost every level.