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Unlawful Entry

Unlawful Entry

Thriller · Mystery · 1992

Happily married Michael and Karen Carr call the police after Karen is held at knife point during a failed robbery attempt in their home. Before long, one of the responding officers, Officer Pete Davis, helps arrange the installation of a new security system, taking extra interest in the couple's case. As a result, the grateful Carrs invite him to stay for dinner and they strike up an unexpected friendship. However, as the lonely policeman develops an intense fixation on Karen, his take on friendship develops into a dangerous obsession soon becoming the Carrs' worst nightmare.

Movie details

Unlawful Entry

“A man obsessed will do anything for love... A cop obsessed can get away with it.”

1992 Thriller · Mystery 1h 52m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.4 / 10

21.3K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

75 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

61 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Happily married Michael and Karen Carr call the police after Karen is held at knife point during a failed robbery attempt in their home. Before long, one of the responding officers, Officer Pete Davis, helps arrange the installation of a new security system, taking extra interest in the couple's case. As a result, the grateful Carrs invite him to stay for dinner and they strike up an unexpected friendship. However, as the lonely policeman develops an intense fixation on Karen, his take on friendship develops into a dangerous obsession soon becoming the Carrs' worst nightmare.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Unlawful Entry?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Jonathan Kaplan

Written by

George Putnam · Lewis Colick · John Katchmer

Kurt Russell

Kurt Russell

Michael Carr

Ray Liotta

Ray Liotta

Officer Pete Davis

Madeleine Stowe

Madeleine Stowe

Karen Carr

Roger E. Mosley

Roger E. Mosley

Officer Roy Cole

Ken Lerner

Ken Lerner

Roger Graham

Deborah Offner

Deborah Offner

Penny, Karen's Friend

Johnny Ray McGhee

Johnny Ray McGhee

Ernie Pike

Court is in session

Put Unlawful Entry on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Big-Idea Head

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.