Don McKay
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Movie: D-
Special Features: C+
Blu-ray Geek Factor: 3 out of 10
Writer-director Jake Goldberger scored a decent cast for his feature debut, “Don McKay.” Oscar nominees Thomas Haden Church, Elisabeth Shue and Melissa Leo, along with M. Emmet Walsh head up an impressive cast that even includes the ever-reliable Keith David.
Unfortunately, Goldberger’s script is a severe mess, and his directorial style is duller than a steak knife that’s been used to cut wood and plaster for 10 years.
Church plays the title character, a depressed janitor who gets a mysterious letter from his ex-high school girlfriend Sonny (Shue) beckoning him to come visit in their hometown. When he arrives, he discovers Sonny is deathly ill and has been pining for him the past twenty-five years since high school. She wants to spend her dying days with her long lost love. Don doesn’t have anything else to really do, so he goes along with her fantasy.
Leo plays Sonny’s mysterious nurse, while James Rebhorn plays her doctor, a man who is clearly faking it. This is basically a far-fetched mystery that becomes unintentionally funny by its final frames due to the utter preposterousness of the plot. Goldberger doesn’t seem to know what to do with his script because the movie’s tone is all over the place and there are times where Shue and Leo don’t seem to know whether they are in a mystery/thriller or dark comedy.
Shue’s acting is especially bad here—the equivalent to a boat whose rudder has sunk to the bottom of the ocean, getting shredded by sharks on the way down. Shue is capable of good work, but you wouldn’t know it watching her try to drum up emotions in this catastrophe of a film.
Church, also capable of good performances, is frightfully boring in a movie that drags and drags and then tries to convince you that, really, it’s very clever. It’s not.
Special Features: Audio commentary from Goldberger, some deleted scenes. Also available on DVD.
Green Zone (Blu-ray)
Universal Home Video
Movie: C-
Special Features: B+
Blu-ray Geek Factor: 5.5 out of 10
Matt Damon teams up again with director Paul Greengrass “The Bourne Supremacy,” who utilizes his trademark hand-held camera-style to supreme disadvantage this time out. The film tells a fictional story based partially on reality, as Damon plays a soldier during the Iraq War that discovers the weapons of mass destruction scare might have been a ruse. The story might’ve been interesting had Greengrass allowed the viewer’s eye to fixate on what was going on for more than a few frames. The film is often so jumpy it can only be deemed sloppy.
Damon’s acting is good here. The actor basically acts his pants off in a film whose execution does not match his efforts while Greg Kinnear does his best with the silly role of a Pentagon official who doesn’t like smart soldiers. The movie could have been good, but not in the hands of a director whose visual style is akin to a spastic colon.
Special Features: While the movie isn’t very good, it is cool to see Damon and Greengrass talking about it as part of Universal’s “U-Control” Blu-ray special feature. You also get picture-in-picture behind-the-scenes footage, and deleted scenes. This is a Blu-ray where the features almost justify the purchase. The film is also available on DVD, though it doesn’t feature “U-Control.”
Bob Grimm
Darkman (Blu-ray)
Universal Home Video
Movie: B-
Special Features: F
Blu-ray Geek Factor: 5 out of 10
With this film’s arrival on Blu-ray, I managed to watch it for the first time in decades. I remember thinking it was a technical marvel upon its original release and some of the stunts are truly spectacular. The effects haven’t aged particularly well, but it’s still a fun film to watch.
Liam Neeson delivers his most unhinged performance yet as a scientist trying to invent artificial skin who gets blown to smithereens. He survives, badly scarred, and starts using his artificial skin to create masks of himself, along with masks of the jerks who killed him. He uses these masks in an elaborate scheme to seek revenge and continue a love affair with the beautiful Frances McDormand.
Unfortunately, there’s a catch: The skin dissolves after 99 minutes if it is exposed to the light. So he must remain, for the most part, in the dark. Therefore…he is Darkman!
This is director Sam Raimi’s first studio film after the independent marvel that was “Evil Dead II.” He had a bigger budget, but he was still a director who specialized in frantic action and over-the-top performances. He gets Neeson to go crazy in this movie, and makes it fun to watch.
Neeson wasn’t known on the acting scene when he was first cast in the role, beating out the likes of Gary Oldman and Bill Paxton. Bruce Campbell was Raimi’s first choice, but the studio wouldn’t let Raimi cast him. He does make a cameo however, along with John Landis and Jenny Agutter of “American Werewolf in London” fame.
This film is more for the “Evil Dead” Raimi fan rather than the “Spider-Man” Raimi fan. The sequence where Darkman is hanging from a helicopter is still a marvel.
Special Features: You get nuthin’!
Bob Grimm reviews DVD and Blu-ray media weekly.
