Before getting married to her fiancé Michael, Tara (Jaimie Alexander) and her friends travel for the weekend to New Orleans for her bachelorette party. Once there, she meets an attractive young bartender named Patrick (Wes Bentley) and their glances quickly turn into stares. She ends up leaving her friends for a night of passion with Patrick. The next morning, Tara finds herself late for her flight home and eager to put the one-night-stand in her wake. But Patrick is in no rush to part company with the beautiful bride-to-be, and makes that creepily clear by ominously attempting to stall her exit. She finally manages to catch her flight and soon realizes that, in her haste, she has lost her phone.
As she continues the wedding plans and reservations back at home, Tara is startled to find that her fling has tracked her down via the information available in her lost phone. The tension builds when Patrick is left to realize that Tara has no plans to meet, nor even speak to him. This leads to him spiraling into, first delusion, and then revenge. The shunned lover starts to plot any way possible to derail the marriage to Michael. Several unsuccessful attempts are made by Patrick to stop the young couple from marrying, and we learn of his troubling and dark past in the process.
The couple do eventually manage to get married, retreating to an island for their expected night of honeymoon bliss immediately afterwards. Unfortunately, they come to find they are not alone and the night turns into one of madness and murder when Patrick shows up to spoil the fun.
Broken Vows borrows from many other similarly themed films that use infidelity and unreciprocated love as a catalyst for suspense. You may notice certain similarities with films like Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, and even Cape Fear. I expected this might be the case from the title of the picture, but I was hoping for a new spin or twist to that formula. Sadly, Broken Vows does not deliver anything new or novel in that respect.
The two main characters are well acted and attractive to watch and the cinematography is beautifully done, with nice attention to detail and framing to each shot. That being said, I couldn’t help but feel the film itself falls a bit flat at the climax. This fact disappointed me, as the finale is where I was expecting something new or unique to be revealed. There is a set-up for a possible sequel at the end, but I’m not sure whether or not audiences (or producers) will feel a second installment is necessary.
Broken Vows will available to watch on Digital Download from 6th November and can be bought here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/movie/broken-vows-2016/id1292842031?at=1001lnNr
