Plot: What’s it about?
It’s hard to believe that the man behind such great comedies such as “Overboard”, “Pretty Woman” and “The Princess Diaries” could have helmed this movie. But, that’s the case. The title of the movie is “Dear God” and after viewing it (and really looking forward to watching it, as I’d never seen it before) I can’t think of a more apt title. Starring Greg Kinnear, early in his career, this showed that like in “Sabrina” he could act. He was about the only bright spot in the movie, except for the always great Hector Elizondo who appears in all of Garry Marshall’s movies. Kinnear would go onto make “As Good as it Gets” and showed that he had real talent outside of his trademark smirk which he honed while the host of the talk show “Talk Soup”. It’s movies like this that make you sort of lose faith in the so-called system. Now I don’t want to say that this has no redeeming values of any sort, maybe if there’s nothing else on and this is the only DVD you have and there’s a foot of snow on the ground, then you might be able to bear it, but aside from that…
We start out with Tom Turner (Greg Kinnear), a low-life con man who tries anything to make a quick buck. But when one of his cons backfires, it lands him in court and subsequently a job in the Post Office (makes you think a bit about our legal system if this happened in “real life”). Turner gets assigned the dreaded “Dead Letter Office” job, proving that it’s not just the title of an R.E.M. album. Anything from letters to Santa to the Tooth Fairy to God are all thrown here and it’s not long that Tom takes on the responsibility of trying to read and answer the letters to God (hence the title of the film). They’re little things, like cleaning a house or letting a housewife have one night off from her troublesome twins; but things nonetheless. Word starts to spread and before long the local news is covering the events as if they were really acts of God. They’re not, of course. The media loves the story, however the Post Office doesn’t. Tom, the criminal, all of the sudden has a soft spot in his heart for kids with hope, dreams and wishes. I hope I haven’t given away the ending, but it’s pretty predictable as to what will happen. Suffice it to say, Kinnear has gone onto bigger and better things since this movie was released (1996) and I think I figured out a reason as to why it took so long for the movie to arrive on DVD…
Video: How does it look?
The 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is very good here. While the movie is not that old (it was released in 1996), there are still some areas in which some dirt and a bit of artifacting show up. The movie itself is also very dull and muted when it comes to color. I’m pleased to say that edge enhancement isn’t a problem and flesh tones appear very normal. The black levels appear to be on target and except for a few instances here and there, it’s a very solid representation of the film.
Audio: How does it sound?
Though it does benefit from a Dolby Digital soundtrack, the sound isn’t that great. But it’s not the fault of the processing, there just isn’t a lot of sound in the movie (it was made that way). No problems with dialogue to report and surround effects, when used, sound very real and have a good ambiance about them. For the most part, the action is limited to the front channels. A no frills presentation here, but audio isn’t what this movie is all about.
Supplements: What are the extras?
No supplements have been included.
