Case 39: been there, seen that

When overworked case-manager, Emily Jenkins (Renée Zellweger) decides to get personally involved in the life of one of her clients, she gets more than she bargained for.  Any social worker worth his or her salt knows that the primary rule is to NEVER take your work home with you.  What a shame nobody told Emily this.

In a nutshell, Case 39 is a predictable thriller with some surprisingly good scares, and mostly decent acting.  However that does not take away from the fact that so much of this movie feels like so many other films of a similar ilk.  Suffice to say, if you've seen Orphan, or The Bad Seed, you'll probably have the plot figured out after the first twenty minutes.  Also, you will note blatant ripoffs from films like The Haunting, Candyman, The Omen, and The Ring.

I did like the actress who played uber brat, Lilith (Jodelle Ferland), this dark haired moppet seemed to  transition from waif to she-beast with mercurial ease.

It was also a lot of fun to watch Bradley Cooper play a psychologist who strips his clothes off whilst battling phantom hornets.

Finally, as a real life social worker, I had to laugh when Zellweger's character bitches to her boss about being buried in cases when he hands her the 39th file.  HA! I'll match that caseload and raise her an additional 350 files.  Amateur!