List Price: $29.99 Our Price: $26.99YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
DVD Suspect Zero (Widescreen Edition)
If you're into serial-killer thrillers, you'll want to see Suspect Zero if only to soak up the genre's reliable penchant for creepy atmosphere and creepier behavior. Dark, anguished, and saturated with superficial style, it's a passable exercise in mystery from E. Elias Merhige, who fared better (both critically and artistically) with his acclaimed 2001 film Shadow of the Vampire. The directorial vision evident in that film is also apparent here, but it's pretentiously over-indulged in a grisly plot about the tormented victim of a secret, psychically abusive crime-fighting program (Ben Kingsley) whose pursuit of serial killers in New Mexico is designed to lure a similarly tormented FBI agent (Aaron Eckhart) and his understanding partner (Carrie-Anne Moss) into an investigation that grows increasingly violent and tragically intense. Like Eckhart's character, you may need a handful of aspirin after subjecting yourself to Merhige's visual excess, but as yet another variant of Seven, Suspect Zero scores points for attempting something different. --Jeff Shannon
Kingsley does a typically stand-up job playing O'Ryan, who comes across alternately as heroic, demented, charismatic, and alarming. Carrie-Anne Moss's character seems to have been thrown in to get her name on the playbill - adding some more contemporary star power, and perhaps drawing in a different demographic than might be suggested by Kingsley's lead role. Moss seems uninspired in her role, delivering lines with the same insipid, insouciant monotone as in the Matrix, and failing overall to bring much emotion to the screen.
Moss aside, the movie is an enjoyable evenings entertainment, which blends a fairly typical murder mystery with enough from the paranormal and government conspiracy camps to generate some interesting conversation. Its not the sort of ground-breaking film that stays with you (like Se7en or 12 Monkeys), but it is an enjoyable, dark adventure that I'd put on the shelf next to Kiss the Girls.
I'll start this section with a summary: disappointing. With a very few exceptions, the well-populated features list on this disc is a bunch of typical fluffy PR stuff, thrown on I suppose to pad this Widescreen Collection entry. That being said, there are a few gems in here, identified below.
Director E. Elias Merhige's Commentary: I'll start with the best feature first: Merhige speaks as an auteur and offers a truly first class commentary to accompany the film. Many commentaries seem to get lost in the mundane details of a given shoot - the heat of the sun in a desert scene, or how a shot was taken at a particular angle. Merhige sticks to his territory - which is artistic, inspired direction. In the light of contemporaries like Se7en or Memento, Suspect Zero stands as a good, but fundamentally unexceptional peer until you listen to this commentary and get an understanding of the level of thought that went into each scene. Merhige deconstructs each shoot's artistic and philosophical components, and also frequently contextualizes them within the framework of the entire file - other directors, take note. A commentary gives a director (or cast and crew member, for that matter) a real opportunity to commune with the viewer and communicate their vision; Merhige's success at doing so makes other films rambling and inane commentaries seem really pointless in comparison.
Remote Viewing Demonstration: If you expect director E. Elias Merhige to be able to sit down and successfully conduct a remote viewing, you'll be disappointed. The cast and crew does a fine job of getting sufficiently amazed about the vague coincidences between Merhige's viewing and the wanderings of the Outboard Team, but fundamentally, this is a hocus pocus exercise. This feature was just boring, self-important, and irrelevant. Save your time.
Four Part Featurette - What We See When We Close Our Eyes: Fluff, apparently. My hope was dispelled when the interpreter hugely rolled her eyes before starting in on what the monk has just said, which - on par with the rest of these - was a bunch of mumbo jumbo with no clear intent other than to try and imbue this whole production with a vague aura of pseudo-medical and spiritual credibility. Thumbs down on these.
Alternate Ending (I'm going to spoil it here): The alternate ending is an interesting 30 seconds to the movie, positioned one-year into the future. Its not actually an alternate, as nothing from the rest of the film is changed, but rather an extended ending. Agent Mackelway has assumed psychic-serial-killer O'Ryan's role, using his nascent remote viewing powers to actively hunt down killers. He ends up cornering his next prey at a diner, and using O'Ryan's same verbiage. Merhige explains in commentary that he thought it was too trite or simple an ending, which I agree with, although it is a nice touch that were uncertain as to whether Mackelway is operating within the law or not. The other thing about this ending is that it almost positions the movie as the start of a franchise, with Mackelway transmorgifying into some sort of Dark Hero archetype. Something tells me this won't be happening.
A good-but-not-exceptional movie, combined with merely adequate audio and video and a generally lackluster collection of extras makes this disc worth watching, but as a renter.
Screenplay-Writing-By-Numbers
Let's see: a handsome detective tortured by some traumatic event in his past; a brilliant bad guy who fights like the Incredible Hulk despite his advanced age and decrepitude; a plucky female partner who saves the handsome detective's bacon at the last second; and let's not forget the abrasive and highly obtuse police sergeant.
Just a bit formulaic, don't you think?
Kingsly is ok
Suspect Zero, even with Ben, is still a weak movie. It tries to be cool and gory (kinda like Seven), but it comes off a less than what it wants to be. It's gory and there's a plot line, but the line is a little weak. It eventually goes into the sappy emotional territory and loses its way.
With a plot that might've been lifted from The X-Files, nothing is quite what it seems in The Forgotten, a psychological conspiracy thriller with Julianne Moore doing fine work as a grieving mother whose nine-year-old son was killed in a plane crash. At least, that's what she's been led to believe, but when even her husband (Anthony Edwards) tries to convince her that she's delusional and never had a child, things start to get very spooky indeed. Dominic West (from HBO's superb series The Wire) plays a similarly traumatized father, and when they witness some very strange events--and a mysterious man (Linus Roache) who might be indestructible--this glorified B-movie potboiler directed by Joseph Ruben (best known for Dreamscape and The Stepfather)... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Julianne Moore - Dominic West Director(s): Joseph Ruben DVD Release Date: Released the 18 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.94 Your Price: $15.95YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
Action buffs will have a fine time with the spray of bullets, shattering glass, and pyrotechnic silliness that makes up the bulk of Assault on Precinct 13. Updated from the little-known cops-and-robbers classic John Carpenter made in 1976 (two years before he made his name with Halloween), this high-concept thriller is mostly a lowbrow kill-fest, and is very happy with itself for being so efficient in both categories. A decrepit police station on its last night before retirement--New Year's Eve, no less--plays unexpected home to a gang of criminals who become snowbound in the basement lockup. Another mysterious gang of people who stealthily gather in the blizzard outside want one of the particularly nasty criminals (Laurence Fishburne) dead, and they'll take the rest of the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Laurence Fishburne - Ethan Hawke Director(s): Jean-François Richet DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.98 Your Price: $17.98YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
You get two hostage crises for the price of one in Hostage, an overwrought but otherwise involving thriller grounded by Bruce Willis's solid lead performance. Making a dramatic pit-stop on his way to Die Hard 4, Willis plays a traumatized former Los Angeles hostage negotiator, now working as a nearly-divorced police chief in sleepy Ventura County, California. Willis suddenly finds himself amidst two potentially deadly stand-offs when a trio of hapless teenagers seize hostages in the fortress-like home of an accountant (Kevin Pollack) whose connections to organized crime result in Willis struggling to rescue his estranged wife and daughter, who are being held hostage by faceless thugs at an undisclosed location. Having directed two of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell video... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Bruce Willis - Kevin Pollak - Serena Scott Thomas Director(s): Florent Emilio Siri DVD Release Date: Released the 21 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.99 Your Price: $22.49YOU SAVE $7.5!
Buy it
Like a Hardy Boys mystery on steroids, National Treasure offers popcorn thrills and enough boyish charm to overcome its rampant silliness. Although it was roundly criticized as a poor man's rip-off of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Da Vinci Code, it's entertaining on its own ludicrous terms, and Nicolas Cage proves once again that one actor's infectious enthusiasm can compensate for a multitude of movie sins. The contrived plot involves Cage's present-day quest for the ancient treasure of the Knights Templar, kept secret through the ages by Freemasons past and present. Finding the treasure requires the theft of the Declaration of Independence (there are crucial treasure clues on the back, of course!), so you can add "caper comedy" to this Jerry Bruckheimer... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jon Turteltaub DVD Release Date: Released the 03 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $17.99YOU SAVE $2!
Buy it
Like its predecessor Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve is a piffle of a caper, a preposterous plot given juice and vitality by a combination of movie star glamour and the exuberant filmmaking skill of director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, The Limey). The heist hijinks of the first film come to roost for a team of eleven thieves (including the glossy mugs of Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Bernie Mac, and Don Cheadle), who find themselves pursued not only by the guy they robbed (silky Andy Garcia), but also by a top-notch detective (plush Catherine Zeta-Jones) and a jealous master thief (well-oiled Vincent Cassel) who wants to prove that team leader Danny Ocean (dapper George Clooney) isn't the best in the field. As if all that star power weren't enough--and the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Steven Soderbergh DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $9.99YOU SAVE $4.99!
Buy it
