THE FILM:

Faced with a heart irregularity, Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas) comes unhinged, shattering his marriage with infidelity and losing his business to fraud. Six-and-a-half years later, Ben continues to coast through life, risking what little bond he retains with his family. Douglas, flanked by a diverse cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito and Mary-Louise Parker, delivers, but Solitary Man is hampered by a predictable story.

Unsatisfied with his current predicament, Ben is dating Jordan (Parker), whose father might be able to get Ben another car dealership. Ben takes Jordan's daughter Allyson (Imogen Poots) on a college visit to his alma mater and promptly beds her. Jordan finds out, and Ben is soon kicked to the curb. Facing eviction from his own apartment, Ben turns to college buddy Jimmy (DeVito), who runs a restaurant near the campus, for a job.

Solitary Man quickly makes clear that Ben is not a misunderstood screw-up but a real jerk. Ben's grandson idolizes him, and his adult daughter Susan (Jenna Fischer) tolerates him until he starts asking for money and sleeping with her friends. Ben's ex-wife Nancy (Sarandon) is also surprisingly forgiving to the man who broke her heart by shacking up with half the divorcées in Manhattan. And to top it all off, Ben is completely full of himself and becomes a quasi-mentor to reserved college sophomore Cheston (Jesse Eisenberg), expounding his screw-anything lifestyle upon the young man.

The backbone of Solitary Man is a fear of mortality and the pain of lost love. Viewers are asked to keep this in mind after each queasy turn of Ben's out-of-control locomotive. Unfortunately, the episodic narrative is underwhelming, and where it heads is easy to foretell. The movie throws the good things in Ben's life at him so he can bat them away by behaving badly. This provides uneasy entertainment, but the film has difficulty sustaining the pattern for 90 minutes.

Fortunately, across-the-board strong acting makes up for the middling narrative. Douglas is excellent, and a lesser actor would have gotten lost in the role. Directors Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Knockaround Guys) mention on the film's commentary that viewers are not supposed to like Ben, and with this they succeed. Even so, Ben's charm may be the reason why everyone around him did not cut ties sooner. Also of note is British actress Poots (28 Weeks Later), who brings a fiercely vindictive wit and excellently channels the disdain she feels over her parents' divorce.

Despite compelling characters, Solitary Man likely will not satiate viewers looking for resolution. A saccharine ending would have been insulting, but Solitary Man has a tendency to rehash and fails to build into much at all. Instead, viewers must take Ben as the tornado of insecurity he is and understand there is no fixing him.

THE DVD:

VIDEO:

Anchor Bay Films presents Solitary Man on DVD with a respectable 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. The film's blustery East Coast setting is well-represented with solid colors and deep blacks, and flesh tones are always natural. There are no signs of digital tinkering like grain removal or edge enhancement. The transfer's one real flaw is a consistent lack of detail. Many tightly shot scenes lack depth, and backgrounds are somewhat hazy. Overall, this is a decent presentation that does not distract from the film.

SOUND:

The film is largely dialogue-driven, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 track handles the material nicely. Conversations and effects are balanced well, and the surrounds are used when appropriate. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

EXTRAS:

Only two extras of note appear on the disc. The first is an enjoyable commentary from directors Koppelman and Levien, who are joined by actor Douglas McGrath. All three are very chatty, and there is little dead air. The directors talk about shooting with little budget, which forced them to pay for Poots' airfare so she could audition. The conversation also turns to capturing the spirit of New York on film and the production of individual scenes. The interesting technical information the commentary provides is not duplicated in Solitary Man: Alone in a Crowd (11:46), a short featurette on the making of the film that mainly consists of the actors gloating over each other. The film's theatrical trailer is also included.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I wish Solitary Man's narrative was as good as the actors involved. I wanted more from the story, but was reasonably intrigued by the series of Ben's bad decisions that I got instead. Michael Douglas is excellent in the title role, and his performance alone may make this worth picking up down the road when it is on sale. For the time being, the curious should Rent It to decide if it is something worth revisiting.

William lives in Burlington, North Carolina, and looks forward to a Friday-afternoon matinee.