THE WOMAN
Blu-ray Review by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: *** (out of 5 stars)
More than a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011, Lucky McKee premiered his new grisly thriller “The Woman” to a huge audience... and some people walked out. One guy, now famous for his rant to festival employees that was captured on video and posted on YouTube, said that the film had no business being made and should be banned.
And this is exactly the reason you should see “The Woman.” Not because you need to seek out disturbing films, which comes from that increasing trend of new filmmakers trying to out-outrage everybody else. Personally, I don’t make it a point to find the most offensive movie out there. To this point, “The Woman” is hardly the most offensive movie I’ve seen. Sure, it’s disturbing, but it’s not really that off-setting.
But it is a good movie. It breaks some new ground for horror, the most important, I think, is to frame the horror to take place in the day. When you sit back and look at “The Woman,” it’s a beautifully-shot film. It’s gorgeous, actually. Most of the film takes place in broad daylight, particularly the most grisly aspects of it. McKee still lurks down in the basement a bit, but that’s not where the real punch of the film happens.
“The Woman” is the story of what appears to be a pleasant middle-American family. However, there’s a lot of rottenness beneath this facade. The father is an abusive sociopath. The mother is an enabler. The daughter is crippled emotionally from abuse. And the son is a sociopath in training. When the father finds a feral woman on his property, he captures her and holds her in his cellar. There, he tries to make her civilized. But this only pisses her off.
McKee, never one to shy away from controversy, juggles some impressive themes, including civility, raw emotion and the true nature of crime. He frames the film in an incredibly uncomfortable shell and lets things come to a boil inside. He takes a character that was a villain in a previous film and makes her the sympathetic victim. It’s one of those movies that makes you root for someone you don’t particularly like and root against those that might not be personally the worst the world has to offer. All characters are shades of gray, but they feel very real.
The only problems with this film is there are some elements that are so trite and unbelievable in an otherwise solid structure. In particular, I’m talking about the daughter’s teacher in school who feels like a cheesy supporting red shirt in an 80s slasher. Were she out of this film, it would be a stronger movie. Still, that shouldn’t keep you from watching it.
The Blu-ray includes a few deleted scenes as well as a behind-the-scene featurette that actually offers some interesting insight into how the film originated and come to fruition. There’s also a music track dubbed “Distracted” by Sean Spillane. Finally, Lucky McKee drops his weird little animated short film “Mi Burro” into the special features. It has nothing to do with “The Woman,” but it’s worth watching nonetheless for a taste of the bizarre.
THERE BE DRAGONS
Blu-ray Review by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5 stars)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars)
Roland Joffe, director of “The Mission” and “The Killing Fields,” takes on religion and war in his latest film “There Be Dragons.” The story jumps around in time, from modern day to the Spanish Civil War, which coincided with the rise of fascism at the head of World War II.
A reporter (Dougray Scott) is commissioned to write a book about the founding of the Opus Dei and its founder Josemaria Escriva (Charlie Cox). This gives him an opportunity to get closer to his father (Wes Bentley), a childhood friend of Escriva. He digs into the past and discovers secrets in these men’s lives that change his own worldview and his concept of self.
I respect Joffe’s scope of this film, making a war movie that doesn’t necessarily feel like a war movie. Instead of putting the audience in the heart of the action or even in the middle of a resistance movement, we see the war through the eyes of two very different people. The audience swerves into war, but these are fleeting scenes. Instead, we see how the characters choose to react to war and the unpleasantness that come with it.
For as big as this movie feels, it is an intimate film for Joffe, examining the worldview of religion and family.
Unfortunately, the drawback is that it is all quite confusing. Without a separate history lesson, it’s hard to keep this war straight. Told in multiple flashbacks that literally span the entirety of the first part of the 20th century, character developments are scattered throughout, but it’s hard to see how everything fits together in the big picture. With shifting loyalties of characters in the film, I had a hard time keeping it all straight.
So, yes, the film looks beautiful. But unfortunately is stumbles over itself too often to fully realize greatness.
The Blu-ray is pretty sparse in terms of extra content. There’s a nice assortment of deleted scenes, though the long film itself made it tough for me to watch all of these. Were the plot a little more cohesive, I might have felt more like delving into the additional backstory. The other special feature is “Facing Your Dragons: Inspiring Testimony from Wes Bentley.” This is an unexpected personal statement from Bentley talking about overcoming substance abuse as he prepared for the film. It’s not terribly relevant, but it’s unique.
THE WHISTLEBLOWER
Blu-ray Review
by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5 stars)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars)
Rachel Weisz takes center stage in “The Whistleblower,” a film about Kathy Bolkovac, an American police officer who joins a peacekeeping force in Eastern Europe following the conflicts in Bosnia. While working to bring order and justice to the people in the war-torn area, Bolkovac uncovers a seedy human trafficking ring that victimizes girls from the region. Even worse, she uncovers evidence that many of her fellow police officers are heavily involved in not just utilizing these services but providing them as well.
Human trafficking is a real problem in the world, and it’s only recently been brought to light under the media. I’m sure that the crimes that the real Bolkovac uncovered were heinous and tragic. However, “The Whistleblower” lays things on so thick they quickly become unbelievable. The film itself admits that this is a fictionalized account and not meant to represent every case.
The problem with this is that it overplays the issue. It seems that the story takes all the worst elements of human trafficking stories from around the world and stirs them up into this one case, to the point it becomes somewhat ludicrous. This is typical of films wanting to over-dramatize the situation for the effect of timing and emotion in a film.
On top of this, the film spends far too much time on Bolkovac as a character and her quite humdrum and somewhat unpleasant life. She’s not an intriguing character in the least, and the film only becomes compelling once she starts chasing the real criminals.
Recently I read up on the notorious movie “A Serbian Film,” and the director had said part of the reason he made it was as a statement about his own country’s push to victimize itself. He complained that most movies of note from that region feature girls in trouble who rise to the occasion and fight. This is basically the plot of “The Whistleblower” from a different angle, and I found that rather telling about the push to make this film.
Yes, “The Whistleblower” has its heart in the right place. However, that heart is bleeding a little too much.
The only special feature on this disc is the featurette “Kathy Bolkovac: The Real Whistleblower.” While this featurette punctuates the fact that this is all based on a true story, the discussion is still very vague and caused me to question even more how accurate the events of the film were. It did nothing for me to embrace the full story and not roll my eyes at how thick they laid the drama.
DONNER PASS
Blu-ray Review
by Kevin Carr
MOVIE: ** (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5 stars)
“Donner Pass” offers a different take on the standard horror flick. Aside from a brief introduction which shows a member of the Donner Party and his unfortunate end, the film begins as a basic modern movie about a group of college kids stuck in the scary woods. We’ve seen this sort of thing quite a bit recently with higher profile movies like “Shark Night,” “Creature” and “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.” This is the new standard to send-up.
In “Donner Pass,” kids show up at a cabin and get snowed in. There’s the nicer characters, the nerd that originally invited people, the pretty girl he likes and the party crashers who make things unpleasant. Predictably, a mysterious killer shows up and starts to make things bloody.
Most of this film is pretty rote and standard. The first half drags a bit because it does present the same thing we’ve seen many times before. Fortunately, things switch up a bit at the end, which is nice to see. It’s not the most unique twist on the stand-by that you’ll ever see, but it makes it worth finishing the film.
There’s also a nice hot tub scene which features a naked girl in it. This may be a chauvinistic comment to make, but this is essential to a college horror movie, in my opinion. It’s as essential as some blood and gore, which this film also has covered.
Not explosively unique, but also not a complete waste of time, “Donner Pass” works at least part of the time.
The DVD comes with three featurettes, including “The Making of Donner Pass,” “On Set with Horror Icon John Kassir” and “The Makeup & FX Secrets of Donner Pass.” These are decent, revealing special features and add a bit of value to the somewhat rote horror DVD.
