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Fear X
Lionsgate Home Entertainment // PG-13 // March 8, 2005
List Price: $27.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie
From writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn, comes a movie that tries way too hard to be something that it can't even come close to being.
Billed as a movie about a man named Harry Caine (the unfortunate John Turturro) who works security at a mall, who is driven to near insanity because his wife was senselessly killed while in the mall parking lot. Working security obviously has its advantages, the main one being the surveillance tapes that Harry obtains, but unfortunately they both help and hinder his ability to move forward with his life. After receiving news from the police force that they have a photo of the man who killed his wife Harry starts realizing that the visions and memories that keep surfacing might mean something so he enters the house across the street from his own house, only to find a clue that leads him to small town Montana and a confrontation with the man who may or may not killer.
This movie is quiet, very quiet; with many occasions where no dialog is spoken for minutes at a time, and even when the dialog is spoken, the actors don't seem to be putting any effort into their performances so they come off as sleeping their way through the movie. If that isn't bad enough, the plot itself is hardly developed, and seems to be here as a means to let Harry fall headfirst into insanity. The fall is done either very deliberately or in extreme slow motion, which coincidentally is the same pace as the rest of this movie. Nothing ever really happens until the last 10 minutes of the movie, but even then a strange David Lynch-esque montage fills the screen for a few minutes which left me wondering what the hell the point of it all was.
The DVD
How's it Look:
The first impression of a DVD is usually the menus, which I have never really commented on in any reviews. However, I found these menus so appalling that I had no choice but to comment on them. The text for a selectable option on each menu was a very dark and blurry black font which all but disappeared when places on the blood red background so a little bit of guesswork was required to select the right options; not the best way to introduce a viewer to your movie.
The movie itself was also very underwhelming in terms of quality, aside from the 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced picture. The picture seemed muddy throughout and colors quite dull. I can't say much about the sharpness as it didn't strike me as either terrible or outstanding. But on an overall level, the video quality was summed up by the menu presentation, not very impressive.
How's it sound:
Two audio options are available for the viewer who wants to experience this movie, a 2 channel stereo option and a DD 5.1 option is also here. As mentioned, it's a very quiet movie so the sound is tough to judge, however when the muted dialog actually came into play it was heard crisply and clearly. No memorable musical score was noticed either.
Extras:
Nothing noteworthy, aside from a few trailers for other Lions Gate films. Oooh, wait the box touts the interactive menus as a special feature, so you have that to look forward to.
Closing thoughts:
The premise to the movie sounds like it could be a great movie; however Refn couldn't make it happen. He was trying to do too much with it, and ended up doing nothing. The slow pace coupled with the non-existent plot development made for 91 minutes that could have been better spent doing almost anything else. Stack onto the poor movie, a sub-par DVD treatment and you have the makings of a movie that says skip me all over it. My recommendation is exactly that, skip this one.
From writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn, comes a movie that tries way too hard to be something that it can't even come close to being.
Billed as a movie about a man named Harry Caine (the unfortunate John Turturro) who works security at a mall, who is driven to near insanity because his wife was senselessly killed while in the mall parking lot. Working security obviously has its advantages, the main one being the surveillance tapes that Harry obtains, but unfortunately they both help and hinder his ability to move forward with his life. After receiving news from the police force that they have a photo of the man who killed his wife Harry starts realizing that the visions and memories that keep surfacing might mean something so he enters the house across the street from his own house, only to find a clue that leads him to small town Montana and a confrontation with the man who may or may not killer.
This movie is quiet, very quiet; with many occasions where no dialog is spoken for minutes at a time, and even when the dialog is spoken, the actors don't seem to be putting any effort into their performances so they come off as sleeping their way through the movie. If that isn't bad enough, the plot itself is hardly developed, and seems to be here as a means to let Harry fall headfirst into insanity. The fall is done either very deliberately or in extreme slow motion, which coincidentally is the same pace as the rest of this movie. Nothing ever really happens until the last 10 minutes of the movie, but even then a strange David Lynch-esque montage fills the screen for a few minutes which left me wondering what the hell the point of it all was.
The DVD
How's it Look:
The first impression of a DVD is usually the menus, which I have never really commented on in any reviews. However, I found these menus so appalling that I had no choice but to comment on them. The text for a selectable option on each menu was a very dark and blurry black font which all but disappeared when places on the blood red background so a little bit of guesswork was required to select the right options; not the best way to introduce a viewer to your movie.
The movie itself was also very underwhelming in terms of quality, aside from the 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced picture. The picture seemed muddy throughout and colors quite dull. I can't say much about the sharpness as it didn't strike me as either terrible or outstanding. But on an overall level, the video quality was summed up by the menu presentation, not very impressive.
How's it sound:
Two audio options are available for the viewer who wants to experience this movie, a 2 channel stereo option and a DD 5.1 option is also here. As mentioned, it's a very quiet movie so the sound is tough to judge, however when the muted dialog actually came into play it was heard crisply and clearly. No memorable musical score was noticed either.
Extras:
Nothing noteworthy, aside from a few trailers for other Lions Gate films. Oooh, wait the box touts the interactive menus as a special feature, so you have that to look forward to.
Closing thoughts:
The premise to the movie sounds like it could be a great movie; however Refn couldn't make it happen. He was trying to do too much with it, and ended up doing nothing. The slow pace coupled with the non-existent plot development made for 91 minutes that could have been better spent doing almost anything else. Stack onto the poor movie, a sub-par DVD treatment and you have the makings of a movie that says skip me all over it. My recommendation is exactly that, skip this one.
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