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THIS BOY'S LIFE (1993)
***1/2 (out of four)
Image B+ Sound B+
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As a free-spirit who runs out of gas, Ellen Barkin does underappreciated work in Michael Caton-Jones' This Boy's Life--much like everyone else in the picture. But as I had re-watched Sea of Love just days prior to my latest viewing of This Boy's Life, it occurred to me that Barkin's breed--tough, curvaceous, a real broad--is an endangered species in American cinema, with Hollywood now favouring spunk and cuteness in an actress over resolve and allure. (Witness the quick ascent of Hilary Duff vs. the dawdling obscurity of Ellen Pompeo.) Barkin evokes her own star-making turn in Desert Bloom as Caroline, a single mom leading a nomadic existence in 1950s Arizona with her loving yet rebellious son, Toby (Leonardo DiCaprio, saddled with a greaser coiffure that's more Michael Score than James Dean). Looking for a father figure to take Toby under his wing, Caroline marries the tyrannical Dwight (Robert De Niro) and moves to his metaphorically-named hometown of Concrete; so commences a battle of wills between stepfather and stepson. Adapting Tobias Wolff's memoir, screenwriter Robert Getchell (a natural fit as the author of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore) loses track of Caroline as the film shifts focus to Dwight, although Barkin's well-chosen background gestures feel sufficient. De Niro claims the screen in a textured performance that mines Dwight's reign of terror for untold pathos--when he screams "When is it Dwight's turn?" at film's end, you realize that all along he has strolled the same boulevard of broken dreams as Caroline. (The movie suggests they're merely the domineering/submissive flipsides of terminal adolescence, products of the socially regressive times.) DiCaprio goes toe-to-toe with De Niro, though his spectacular efforts here continue to be overshadowed by his Oscar-baiting in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Maybe it's the haircut. Warner's DVD offers This Boy's Life in a smooth 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer with a front-heavy but stereoscopic Dolby Surround soundtrack. Partial cast & crew filmographies and the film's theatrical trailer close out the platter.-Bill Chambers Running Time 114 minutes; MPAA R; Aspect Ratio(s) 2.35:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced; Languages English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround; CC Yes; Subtitles English, French, Spanish; DVD-9; Warner |
Back in film school, one of my professors hosted a daylong workshop that promised to climax with a demonstration of 'bad directing' by way of excerpts from a movie he reviled. The instant the tape cued up, I recognized the opening licks of Trevor Jones' Sea of Love score--having watched the picture many times as an exceptionally horny teenager, that saxophone had become as familiar to me as the first few bars of "Toccata and Fugue." Proffy levelled his inaugural criticism at the title sequence, a montage of New York-at-night footage so clichéd it has to be second-unit work. He railed against the significant length of this introduction and its general lack of interest, to which I countered, "I dunno, I like long, dull main credits. It gives late-comers time to sit down and lets everybody else come down from the trailers." To paraphrase Ralphie Parker, he looked at me, as did several of my classmates, like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears, but there's something you must know about the majority of film students and their instructors: they don't go to the cinema. Pot commands too much of their time and money, thus they have lost touch with the communal aspects of moviegoing. It was a long afternoon in which I repeatedly found myself in the unenviable position of defending journeyman filmmaker Harold Becker; the thing is, Sea of Love has a cracking good screenplay by Richard Price (adding guns to his novel Ladies' Man), and it's very well acted. What the professor saw as demerits--bland camera placement, bland editing--I saw as faith in the material. (Can you imagine the indulgent mess that any one of the Propaganda boys besides David Fincher would've made out of Price's screenplay?) Tomato/tomatto, but Becker's high-profile resume (The Onion Field, Taps, Sea of Love--each of which grows more interesting with repeat viewings) should speak for itself.
Originally developed as a vehicle for Dustin Hoffman, who abandoned the project after he and Price got into a contretemps over Price's rewrite duties on Rain Man, Sea of Love never seemed a match for Hoffman, anyway, since he lacks the two qualities that make fellow half-pint Al Pacino a great movie-cop: sad eyes and a stone-washed voice. Pacino plays Det. Frank Keller, a policeman still stinging from the dissolution of his marriage. Pushing retirement age, he feels the creeping importance of getting a personal life, so when love falls into his lap, he takes it--even though she, Helen (Ellen Barkin), might be the "doer" in a string of sex-related homicides. (He meets her during a clever, if laborious, attempt to collect suspects' fingerprints en masse.) Announcing the big-budget erotic thriller cycle that peaked with Basic Instinct, Sea of Love has its Cinemax lapses in taste (Helen's grocery store seduction is cheesy beyond the pale), but most films of the genre lack sophistication from which to lapse.
Universal's Collector's Edition DVD of Sea of Love restores lustre to the picture unseen since its theatrical release. In all previous home video versions, flesh tones appear bruised and walls purple, but in this disc's 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, colours are more organic, and the shadowy portions of the image are of much-improved detail. The accompanying Dolby Surround soundtrack features a surprising number of rear-channel effects. Extras are skimpy for a CE, but they'll do: J.M. Kenny's "The Creation of Sea of Love" (14 mins.) alternates interviews with Becker and producer Martin Bregman, both of whom characterize the shoot as a piece of cake despite Becker's status as a last-minute replacement for an unnamed departing director.
As in his undistinguished commentary track, Becker cites verisimilitude as his numero uno priority and celebrates the efforts of his cast, notably Michael Rooker, here hired on the basis of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. (Rooker is terribly authentic as a bystander who, in one of Price's most keenly observed moments, banks on the racism rampant within the NYPD.) Though Lorraine Bracco's bit part as Frank's ex-wife was restored for the TV version of Sea of Love, her scenes are not among this platter's six minutes' worth of deleted material. Instead, we have a wonderful passage that ties up a plot strand involving a black male murder suspect, a cameo by Price, and an extension of Frank and Helen's date at a fancy restaurant. A page of Al Pacino recommendations rounds out the disc.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author. |
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DVD GRADES:
Image A-
Sound B+
Extras C+ |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
113 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.85:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English Dolby Surround,
French Dolby Surround,
Spanish Mono
CC
Yes
Subtitles
French, Spanish
DVD-9
Region One
Universal
the critic
Buy the SEA OF LOVE poster at Moviegoods
Buy the THIS BOY'S LIFE poster at Moviegoods
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Published: May 11, 2003
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