Plot: What’s it about?
There seem to be two Sam Raimi’s these days. One is the ultra cool, hip director who brought us such classics as Army of Darkness, and the Evil Dead movies. The other is the “newer” Sam Raimi, who is bringing us movies like A Simple Plan, For Love of the Game and the upcoming Spider Man movie. They really couldn’t be more different. Could it be that Raimi has decided to grow up and use his talents to try and tell us a better story? Or is there only so much you can do with your main character having a chainsaw for an arm? In any case, Raimi is a very talented filmmaker who more than deserves the benefit of the doubt. One thing is for sure, his pace is certainly slower and his films have a very subtle, meloncholy feel to them. It’s almost as if you want to push the Fast Forward button to make the characters talk faster. It’s a slow pace, but this builds the storyline and can even make the plot more suspensful. With his latest effort in “The Gift”, Raimi has assembled a cast that’s pretty darn good. Then again, the problem with an ensemble cast is that you get too many logs in the fire. Cate Blachett’s character of Annie Wilson is the main focus of the story, but you have Academy Award winner Hilary Swank, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes and Greg Kinnear all right there. So the problem becomes this…who’s movie is it?
In a small southern town, a place where everyone knows everyone else and eveyone else’s business, a murder is about to occur. But that’s a ways off…Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett) is a single mother of three and aside from making her living on Social Security, she gives psychic readings to some of the local folks. In larger cities, Annie’s “Gift” wouldn’t be thought of as anything odd. But in this town, she is looked at as more of a freak. Jessica King (Katie Holmes) is from a very prominent family and is set to marry Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear), but it seems that she’s sleeping with everyone in town and that spells bad news. Off the subject a bit, I can’t help but think that Katie Holmes was a bit miscast here. Holmes is a fine actress, but she seems a bit young to be playing the future wife of Greg Kinnear’s character, Wayne. Kinnear and Holmes must be separated in age by at least 15 years. It just seems odd…anyway, if you can get past that fact, then I suppose it works. We see what Annie sees, and what Annie sees is that Jessica is in for some trouble. Skipping ahead, it’s not long after these incidents, that we discover that Jessica is missing and presumed dead. After the investigation turns up no results, they have no choice but to rely on the “psychic” to help them find the body of Jessica. Now the story becomes a “whodunnit” of sorts and everyone’s a suspect.
While “The Gift” may not be the best movie to come around, it certainly kept my attention for the whole 111 minutes. The cast seemed to work, but I feel that it had too many major stars for such a low-key movie. Keanu Reeves is cast as some sort of “bad guy”, but even with his southern drawl, I kept expecting him to stand up and shout “I am an FBI ag-ent…”. But that’s just me. The Gift was also very highly praised by critics, but that might be more for Billy Bob Thornton’s script as opposed to the storyline/acting. Blanchett is the star among stars here, and being an Australian, she plays a pretty convincing southern woman who has psychic gifts. There’s no real “weak link” here, just too many stars, I feel. Heck, if nothing else, we get to see Katie Holmes topless! But that alone might not merit you to buy the disc. About the only other thing the disc sports (besides the anamorphic transfer and 5.1 sound) are some “Exclusive cast and crew Interviews” and a Music Video. The Gift is certainly worth seeing, but you’d really have to like the movie to add it to your library. I’d recommend a rental first…
Video: How does it look?
The Gift is shown in an anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer and for the most part, it looks fairly decent. For a movie that is brand new to DVD, I would have expected a bit better quality, but then again, this movie wasn’t given the biggest budget to work with. It seems odd, and I might be wrong, but it seems that the picture quality got worse as the movie progressed. Some of the early scenes, particularly in the daylight, are very bright and vivid rendering it to almost 3-D like quality. On the other hand, some of the night scenes at the end of the film are plagued with some artifacting and grain that was almost distracting. On the whole, it looked good, but not at all what I was expecting for a film this new.
Audio: How does it sound?
Also slightly disappointing is the audio, then again this movie isn’t a showcase for your system (and it wasn’t meant to be either). Raimi tends to use a very discrete audio with some “bangs” here and there (as evidenced in A Simple Plan), but as I mentioned earlier, this isn’t a movie to show off your system. Dialogue, of which there is a lot, is free of any distortion and generally sounds good. The surround effects have a depth that makes some scenes come to life, but you’ll find that the majority of the action is limited to the front speakers. All in all, it’s a good sounding track, but it won’t leave you wanting more.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Paramount has never been much in the supplements, though they are getting better, and The Gift is no exception to this “rule”. Aside from a music video, you get a ten minute featurette that includes “Exclusive Cast and Crew Interviews” which focuses on all the stars as they say how much they like working with Raimi, how they read the script by Billy Bob Thornton and had to take it, etc. All in all, an above average movie though light on the supplements. It’s a renter…
