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DVD Heaven's Prisoners
When he emerged from film school in the mid-1980s, director Phil Joanou was touted as the next Steven Spielberg, perhaps because Spielberg took him on as a protégé briefly. Since then, it's been "Phil who?" thanks to a series of mediocre thrillers like this one. Based on one of a series of novels by James Lee Burke about a troubled ex-cop named Dave Robicheaux, this film sat on the shelf for a couple of years before finally being released in 1995. Alec Baldwin plays Robicheaux, a recovering alcoholic who has put life on the New Orleans police department behind him--until a plane crashes in the lake next to his house. He rescues a young Central American girl from the wreck and adopts her--and winds up involved in a gumbo of drug running and dirty dealing involving an old pal named Bubba. Tip-off that this movie should have gone straight to video: Bubba is played by Eric Roberts. Redeeming feature (at least for men, who are all dogs, as everyone knows): a Teri Hatcher nude scene. --Marshall Fine
IT IS A PITY THIS DVD WAS NOT PRODUCED WITH DTS EFFECT AS I HAVE
A LASER DISC 10 YEARS AGO WHICH BROUGHT ME EXCITEMENT THROUGH STEREO SURROUND.
IN FACT ALL THE CASTS UNDER THE DIRECTORSHIP BY PHIL JOANOU WERE STUNNING.
NO DOUBT ALEC BALDWIN HAS BEEN PERFORMING EXCELLENT IN ALL ASPECTS SINCE " RED OCTOBER "
HE IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTORS IN THIS CENTURY NO MATTER WHAT
CRITICS SAID.
Heaven's Prisoners-DVD
This is an excellent movie with a wonderful cast. Lots of action and great cinemotography of New Orleans and the Bayou. The soundtrack is excellent. It is a blend of the blues and New Orleans music. The soundtrack first got my attention but then I saw it on satellite one day and decided I had to have this movie to watch whenever I wanted.
Alec Baldwin Could've Been Hard-Boiled But Ends Up Soggy
I remember going to great lengths to fit a matinée showing of HEAVEN'S PRISONERS into a busy Saturday afternoon during its 1996 theatrical release. Considering the source material and the talent behind and in front of the camera, our little filmgoing party of detective-film fans and Alec Baldwin groupies (a.k.a. my mom, my stepfather, and me) found this contemporary film noir to be a big disappointment. Baldwin, who also served as co-producer, brought James Lee Burke's New Orleans ex-cop/recovering alcoholic hero Dave Robichoux from the printed page to the big screen. While Baldwin and the rest of the cast did well in fleshing out Burke's characters and have some tangy tough-guy/gal dialogue, they're hampered by two things:
1.) The film's slo-o-o-ow pacing. Maybe the Louisiana heat got to everyone, not just Baldwin. Of all the actors, Long Island native Baldwin sweats the most, so much that it began to remind me of the sweating-bullets gags with Albert Brooks in BROADCAST NEWS and Robert Hays in AIRPLANE!
2.) A plot that, as rendered in the film (whether it's the fault of the screenwriter or the editor, I can't be sure), never quite follows through on any of its elements. It's too bad, because these elements could've made for an exciting movie: drug dealing, illegal alien smuggling, rival crime bosses (one is played colorfully by Eric Roberts before he became a parody of himself, essentially playing a Southern-fried version of his character from director Phil Joanou's 1992 thriller FINAL ANALYSIS), an adorable little Salvadoran orphan girl (named "Alafair" by the Robichouxs, after Dave's mom. Late in my pregnancy at the time, I liked the name Alafair so much, I nearly changed my mind about naming my then-unborn daughter Siobhan!), and a bevy of beautiful, beguiling women, including earth mother Kelly Lynch, vampy Teri Hatcher in a full-frontal nude scene that was much ballyhooed at the time, and Mary Stuart Masterson, looking like a young Jessica Lange in what was then a change-of-pace role for her: a troubled stripper who loves Robichoux. Despite the sexy promises in the movie's ads, none of the ladies share anything with Baldwin but dialogue and some kisses and/or embraces. Maybe the climate was already so hot, the filmmakers didn't want to add any further steaminess for fear of poor Baldwin collapsing from heat prostration! As my mom put it at the time: "I thought the height of my day would be seeing sexy, dashing Alec Baldwin, but he came up sweaty, rumpled, tired, depressed, and moving as if he was in slow motion. If he'd made love as many times as he got beaten up, it would've been the sexiest picture of '96!"
To be fair, there *are* a number of strong characterization and action scenes, but there's just too darn much talky, molasses-paced lag time between them -- and yet, oddly, some of the scenes end abruptly just as they're about to become intriguing! Perhaps Joanou, Baldwin & Co. could've dredged a tighter, more involving thriller out of this if they'd whittled the 140-minute running time down to 105 minutes or so. As HEAVEN'S PRISONERS is now...well, read James Lee Burke's books instead.
Silly & trite, but sexy and a good time. Grab the candy bowl, butter the popcorn. This is a must for any and all Teri Hatcher fans and is pretty good B-movie fare - a very decent performance from Mizz Hatcher, both in and out of clothes! More Info about this DVD Director(s): Erik Anjou DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Just finished watching this after having it for about a year or so and finally getting around to it. Well, I guess I could've waited even longer because it wasn't very good or really worth seeing at any particular time. I've seen worse so I was still able to sit through it and besides, it's loaded with typical nondescript 1980's music by unknown acts (at least here in the States, probably), bad acting, bad photography, bad special effects, bad writing and bad directing, so watching it was a kind of excercise in sadomasochistic patience. If you're a connoisseur of bad films then this one will certainly delight you. More Info about this DVD Director(s): Nico Mastorakis DVD Release Date: Released the 14 January 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Kate Beckinsale plays an art restorer. While working on her current commission, she discovers a previously hidden inscription, which points to a murder conspiracy 500 years ago. As she tries to solve the mystery, whose key lies in the paintings depiction of a chess game, people around her, connected in one way or another to the painting, begin to die. Is the past reaching out to wreak vengeance on the present? And who is the Black Queen?
I won't tell you, except to say that the answer is painfully obvious. Based on The Flanders Panel, a novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, author of The Ninth Gate, this is a much less successful film than Roman Polanski's effort. The premise is intriguing, but the resolution is deeply disappointing. Beckinsale's character, furthermore, is so... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jim McBride DVD Release Date: Released the 16 March 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I still have not recieved my DVD. Please send it to me so I can review.
Thanks Lisa Van Gieson More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ashley Judd - Mira Sorvino Director(s): Tim Fywell DVD Release Date: Released the 14 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Neve Campbell is an arresting enigma in When Will I Be Loved, one of writer-director James Toback's most mysterious and successful minimalist dramas about sex, deception, and mutable identities in New York City. Campbell plays twentysomething beauty Vera, whose nude shower scene during the film's opening credits looks more like mythic preparation for a soon-to-be-fateful day than brazen exploitation. Ensconced in a fantastic loft paid for by her parents (Barry Primus, Karen Allen), the unemployed Vera embarks on an odyssey that begins with a mutually deceitful job interview with a college professor (Toback), leads to misadventures in questionable perception in Central Park, and climaxes with Vera's successful manipulation of two powerful men, one a craven lover (Fred Weller) and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Neve Campbell - Fred Weller Director(s): James Toback DVD Release Date: Released the 25 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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