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- Widescreen 2.35:1
- 16:9 Enhanced
- Dual Layer (RSDL 34.03)
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Languages |
- English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
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Subtitles |
English - Hearing Impaired |
Extras |
- Additional footage - Brittany Murphy screen test
- Deleted scenes
- 2 Audio commentary - Director, Actors
- Cast/crew biographies
- 6 Featurette
- Animated menus
- Behind the scenes footage
- 2 Interviews
- Awards/Nominations
- Storyboards
- Outtakes - Dailies
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Don't Say a Word |
Village Roadshow/Roadshow Entertainment .
R4 . COLOR . 109 mins .
MA15+ . PAL |
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It was only a matter of time before Andrew Klavan’s intense page-turner of a novel, Don't Say a Word, was turned into a Hollywood movie. What’s surprising, though, is how long it’s taken. The book was first published nearly ten years ago, and the film rights snapped up not long afterwards; a screenplay was soon doing the rounds of agents and actors. But the producers of this film-to-be had specific intentions - they wanted Michael Douglas to play the lead role. Douglas, though, was busy helping David Fincher kick-start his career in The Game, and as a result it’s taken until now for the movie to be made at all. It’s a rather tortured history for a fairly by-the-numbers thriller - and it’s surprising that the film is so routine when the book on which it’s based was so compelling and incisive. Dr Nathan Conrad (Douglas) is a very successful psychologist whose professional career more or less comes first, even when his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) is laid up in bed with her right leg in a cast. On his way home from work, Conrad is side-tracked by a colleague, who begs him to take a look at a patient who’s proven hard to handle. She is Elisabeth Burrows (Brittany Murphy), and she’s spent the past decade in mental institutions for reasons as yet unknown. But soon after Conrad sees Elisabeth for the first time, his daughter Jessie is kidnapped by a gang of hard-boiled crims led by Patrick Koster (Sean Bean). Koster and his crew stole a ten million dollar jewel at the start of the film, and then promptly got ripped off. Now they are holding Conrad’s daughter hostage and blackmailing him into extracting information from the uncooperative and troubled Elisabeth - a six digit number that holds special meaning both for her and for Koster. Though it’s fairly standard stuff plot-wise, Klavan’s novel was so fascinating because of his characterisations; not only did the reader care about the characters, but they actually felt as though they were getting to know them - particularly Dr Conrad and Elisabeth - and going on the journey with them. The story unravelled with an almost palpable sense of impending doom, and though often over-the-top it never strayed into silliness. This film version is, however, a different prospect altogether. The screenplay is credited to Patrick Smith Kelly of A Perfect Murder fame along with newcomer Anthony Peckham; it’s been through many rewrites, and that shows all too clearly at times. Generally respectful of the novel’s basic themes, the script manages to completely bypass the darker emotions that lay under the surface of Klavan’s story. There’s nothing especially unusual about that, of course - most novels lose big chunks of their emotional core in the translation to the screen - but without a real connection to the characters all we’re left with is a stylishly made but curiously empty standard-issue Hollywood thriller. Despite only ever seeming to play the one character no matter what film he’s in, Michael Douglas does manage to bring his usual presence to the lead role, and he’s very watchable. But he never seems able to convey the vulnerability that’s a key component of the character of Dr Conrad, the feeling of helplessness and utter desperation that, in the novel, ties in so crucially with Elisabeth’s own mental torment. It’s that connection that binds the two characters together emotionally and makes the story work, and with Douglas playing his usual put-upon-and-pissed-off-businessman role there’s little opportunity for that to happen in the film. It’s a shame, too, as Brittany Murphy does a superb job as Elisabeth, quite obviously throwing some of the darker parts of herself into the role and commanding attention for every second she’s on screen; though she’s played a psychiatric patient before (in Girl, Interrupted) she has absolutely no intention of doing the same role again and instead connects with the character she’s supposed to be playing better than anyone else in the film. Famke Janssen never quite clicks as Aggie, Sean Bean digs out the simmering-but-crafty-thug persona that served him so well in Patriot Games, Oliver Platt is good but underutilised as hospital psychologist Dr Louis Sachs and Jennifer Esposito plays an investigative cop with detached efficiency. At the helm of all this is director Gary Fleder, who impressed a lot of people with his previous films Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead and Kiss the Girls. Here he manages to pull out every thriller cliché in the book and press them into service - though to be fair, his craft is impeccable and his sense of visual style, even in the wide Panavision frame, is refreshingly unpretentious. Ultimately, Don't Say a Word on film is just not the bundle of tension and fear it tries so hard to be, though it sometimes comes close. Inevitably, it all feels very familiar and of course it’s very Hollywood - which is exactly what the fans expect from their Michael Douglas thrillers.
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We've come to expect near-perfection from Roadshow discs, and usually get it in the picture quality department. This one's no exception - though in this case, the disc was actually authored by WAMO in the US. Shot in "real" Panavision - in other words, using anamorphic lenses - Don't Say a Word has been transferred to video at the correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16:9 enhanced. Since it uses a fairly muted colour palette for much of its running time (primarily green-biased, though the opening sequence was bleach-bypass processed and is blue-tinged and washed-out as a result), this is a movie that could have looked quite bland on DVD. It doesn't, though - the telecine transfer here is almost impeccable, capturing flesh tones perfectly while not oversaturating backgrounds, particularly in the hospital shots. In scenes when there's a lot of warm light - like at the Conrads' apartment - a lot of use is made of shadow and back-lighting to set the mood, and this also comes across well most of the time. There are a few scenes, though, where black levels were high and shadow detail collapsed; this appeared to be the way the film was intended to look. The image is crisp and detailed throughout, without any overbearing use of edge enhancement (though there is some at work here). The layer change appears early on, at the 34 minute mark, at a well chosen location; there's no obvious freezing of on-screen motion thanks to its placement, and it's quickly negotiated.
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Being your standard-issue thriller, Don't Say A Word not surprisingly offers a standard-issue Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mix. Extremely well recorded, it delivers the film's dialogue with unfailing accuracy and the unusually quirky Mark Isham music score with plenty of fidelity. Overall, it's a mix that's mainly focussed on the front channels, with only token efforts made to create immersive atmospheres (though a scene early on, in which a bevy of helicopters buzz over a murder scene, is a great way to test your surround speakers!). The rest of the time the most action the surrounds see is from the 5.1-mixed music score. Like a lot of films in this genre, the LFE track is heavily used, giving a subwoofer kick to just about anything. And we mean anything - the escalating subwoofer use in this soundtrack is actually bordering on the comedic at times. A motorboat buzzes past; "whoosh" may be what you expect to hear, but it's WHOOMP that you get. A door closes. WHOOMP. A gun fires. WHOOMP. A punch makes contact. WHOOMP. A flea hops off a passing puppy. WHOOMP. By the time the movie's whoomp-riddled climax comes around you'd better have made sure you've got understanding neighbours. With all this bass activity flying around, it's a shame that the DTS audio track included on the US version of this disc is missing here (which probably explains the gigabyte of space left unused on the dual-layered disc despite some very tight bitrate compromises during some of the extras, especially the extremely low audio commentary bitrate).
Extras |
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Overall |
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A twists-and-turns thriller that doesn't actually have many twists or turns in it, Don't Say a Word will probably appeal more to devotees of the big-budget mainstream thriller genre than it will to fans of the book on which it's based. It's very well made, though, visually rich and generally extremely well acted. It's no surprise that Roadshow's DVD contains exactly the same extra features as 20th Century Fox's US version; both appear to have been mastered by the same company. Though missing a DTS soundtrack, this DVD of Don't Say a Word is still excellent value for fans of the film, with very good picture quality, detailed and speaker-challenging sound and a generous supply of extras.
LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1411
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And I quote... |
"...not the bundle of tension and fear it tries so hard to be..." - Anthony Horan |
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Review Equipment |
- DVD Player:
Sony DVP-NS300
- TV:
Panasonic - The One
- Receiver:
Sony STR-DB870
- Speakers:
Klipsch Tangent 500
- Centre Speaker:
Panasonic
- Surrounds:
Jamo
- Audio Cables:
Standard RCA
- Video Cables:
Monster s-video
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