Australian actress Cate Blanchett is terrific in The Gift but the film doesn't live up to its promise.

Co-written by Billy Bob Thornton (A Simple Plan, One False Move, Sling Blade) and directed by Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead Films, A Simple Plan) and with a very strong cast including Giovanni Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear, Katie Homes and Hilary Swank as well as Blanchett, The Gift stood a good chance of being outstanding.

However we were presented with an over busy plot just crammed with every stock character of the genre. It soon became too much, tiresome and just too predictable.

It's tempting to assume that this was Thornton and Raimi succumbing to the big business that is Hollywood. Dangerous, independent film making has again been usurped by timidity and convention.

You would have thought that the creative people associated with this project would have come up with a movie that was far more challenging.

Blanchett plays Annie who lives in small town Southern America. She's grieving the death of the her husband who was killed a year before in an industrial accident. She has frightening visions and gets pulled into a murder investigation when a local trollop (Katie Homes) gets murdered.

Keanu Reeves is effective as a dangerous wife beater, Hilary Swank as his wife, but there are also significant major plot elements involving a psychotic young man (Ribisi) and a goody goody teacher (Kinnear).

Through all of this resides Cate Blanchette who knows and fears too much and it isn't very long before even her fine acting becomes tiresome. The Gift slips firmly into melodrama. It's too busy, too contrived and that's a shame.

3 Predictable Flys.