While She Was Out
On Christmas Eve, suburban housewife Della Myers (Kim Basinger) who lives in a upscale American suburb gets into an argument with her abusive husband Kenneth (Craig Sheffer). He notices on the way into the house, that the floor is covered with their children's toys and clothes. Kenneth verbally abuses Della about her poor housekeeping abilities, and intimidates her by getting into her face, threatening Della by punching a hole in the wall beside her head. After putting her two children to bed, she drives to the mall to buy some last minute wrapping paper. At the mall, Della has a hard time finding a place to park. She circles around and around and soon spies an empty parking space but some Jerk has parked his car to occupy two spaces. Finally, after getting a parking spot, Della walks by this car and writes a note, Jerk, 2 spaces? How inconsiderate, and leaves it on the window of the car. By the time she finishes her purchase, the parking lot is nearly deserted and the note is gone from the car. As she enters her own car, the car on which she had left the note pulls up behind her.She confronts the gang of four young men from the car - the Afro-American Huey (Jamie Starr), the Vietnamese-American Vingh (Leonard Wu) and the Latin Tomás (Luis Chávez) - led by Chuckie (Lukas Haas). Della's taunts Chuckie's name saying "only a moron would name their child that" Where his comeback was that he didn't have any parents and he named himself!Della and the gang members start to push each other around, and a mall security guard steps in to intervene on Della's behalf, but is accidentally shot by Chuckie in the ensuing standoff. As the gang realize that they have committed a murder, Della manages to start her car and drives away. They follow her, intending to kill the only witness.The car chase ends up in a new subdivision that is under construction and Della crashes her truck but escapes uninjured with a red tool box. She takes a flare and her toolbox out of the car and hides behind a dredger. Della runs to the buildings under construction as they discover her. Believing that Della must be carrying something valuable in the little red tool box, the gang forces Della to reveal that she was lugging a full set of tools (mechanics and perhaps some other sharp pointy type implements meant for some repair work).Inspired by the love of her children, Della is determined to survive her nights ordeal. The gang members are shown to be extremely adept at the art of tracking prey in the dark of night, almost unerringly choosing the right direction to go and seeing all possible clues left behind by Della, while waving a single flashlight wildly around and repeatedly yelling Della's name, taunting her and of course all the while, spewing out idle threats.Trying to get the woman, Tomás stumbles upon Huey, who falls and breaks his neck by mischance. After some hide and seek in the woods, Della beats and finally kills Tomás with a cross-wheel-type wrench. She flees through a creek, pursued by Chuckie and Vingh who argue and split up. Della sneaks up on Vingh and kills him in a close fight with another of her tools (the last one) and hides behind a fallen tree.Chuckie tries to persuade Della that he won't kill her. He talks about her kids, saying that he is going to pay them a visit. She screams and he tells her that he won't harm them because they are children and they should not be harmed. He tells her what he thinks of her, that she lives a boring life she doesn't want, mistreated by her husband. He finds her, touches and teases her face. She holds his hand, pulls him down and they kiss. He pulls the gun, both play around .. kissing, teasing. She curses herself and as he is distracted she ignites the flare and blinds him and then takes his gun and shoots him dead.The dazed and exhausted Della returns home, where Kenneth complains like always that she was gone for so long, but Della (deciding to keep her harrowing adventure to herself) ignores him. She goes upstairs to check on her children who are both sleeping. The drunk Kenneth asks if she bought him something at the mall. She points the gun at him and says: "Nothing".
murder