15 Potentially Awesome Films Undermined By Their Terrible Endings

The Gift is, for the most part, an uncommonly intelligent psychological thriller with many great twists, but it doesn't quite stick the landing. Ending a thriller can be pretty tricky and in spite of writer-director and star Joel Edgerton's overall thoroughly impressive work on the film's script, one gets the sense he was a little unsure of how to end the film. The character he plays, Gordon, is getting revenge on Simon (Jason Bateman), an unpleasant man who bullied him in high school and ruined his life.

Some of Gordon's revenge plan represents effective writing, such as getting Simon fired from his job and causing his marriage to break down, but there's also the element of him possibly raping Robyn (Rebecca Hall), Simon's wife, and he then refuses to confirm to Simon whether or not the baby Robyn's just had is actually his.

Not only was the inclusion of a possible rape going right into shock for shock's sake territory, but this part of the scheme just felt very pointless (what exactly was Gordon hoping to achieve with this?) and didn't add anything to the film's final scenes, which also felt a bit quiet and flat compared to the tension throughout the rest of the film.