Deathwatch (2002) – DVD

**½/**** Image B Sound A Extras C+
starring Jamie Bell, Ruaidhri Conroy, Laurence Fox, Torben Liebrecht
written and directed by Michael J. Bassett

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Reading the blurb on the keepcase for Deathwatch, I had to wonder: what kind of individual sets a horror film in World War I? The connection isn't obvious until you see the movie, whereupon you realize that this most pointless of military adventures provides an ideal location for the nihilism and futility that defines the genre. The conflict here serves as proof of the original sin that will result in the retributive deaths of the cast (whether they actually deserve it or not); simply put, it's a slasher movie, but with Kaiser Wilhelm instead of sex. The association is so suggestive that Deathwatch threatens to say things about the Great War that I've never really seen on film before–but alas, it doesn't fully grasp the potential of the link, forcing us instead to contend with fairly standard combat intrigue and officer-bashing as we wait for another flash of intelligence. Still, it's a cut above most straight-to-disc fare (it opened theatrically in the UK), and at its best it has a dank resonance setting it apart from the war and horror movie rabbles.

The British soldiers of Y Company are not in a good mood. Not only have their ranks been decimated by a brutal battle on the Western Front, they're also lost behind enemy lines in a cold and rainy autumn. Their captain is a rule-crazy prig named Jennings (Laurence Fox), while the rest of the boys run the gamut from timid 19-year-old Pfc. Shakespeare (Jamie Bell) to demented ex-con sadist Pvt. Quinn (a brilliantly overwrought Andy Serkis)–with varying horny bastards and fervent Christians in-between. Managing to take a German trench, Y Company hunkers down to ponder their next move–only to find that the atmosphere is so oppressive that civility is breaking down. Sure enough, their lone Hun prisoner is babbling something about the bunker being "evil," and people start dying–at each other's hands as well as those of the ominous barbed-wire figure who lurk in the shadows. The trick is distinguishing between the two, a feat that proves difficult to do as time passes.

The line the movie walks is slender: do you push horror-movie sensationalism and blow your historical credibility, or do you play up the conventions of the combat film and deny the horror elements the conceptual room to breathe? More to the point, how do you successfully blend the two into something more than a curio hybrid? If you're writer-director Michael J. Bassett, you're not quite sure: he seems to intuit the WWI/horror connection in lieu of intellectualizing it, rendering him unable to control the thrust of the synthesis. For long stretches, the film is about a bunch of soldiers getting on each other's nerves, building and then deflating the tension by being all set-up. When the fantastic payoff arrives, it's totally out of step with the character-driven shenanigans that precede it. And those character bits are either clichés from the war-story vaults (the aloof officer who can't see the suffering of his men) or run-of-the-mill and poorly drawn stereotypes (the beatific Jesus freak with the fervent gleam in his eye), besides. Bassett hobbles the film by flying blind here, wanting to create something new but incapable of thinking beyond his straw men.

Tangled within these crossed wires, however, is something like a lucid vision. The effects of the haunted trench are linked to how much the soldiers commit to the war; upholding it (as the Captain and the Christian do) turns you into murderous parodies of yourself–merely accepting it as a foregone conclusion makes you an inevitable victim. It is only rejection of the principle of the conflict that saves whoever it does, in this case the company 'coward' who would rather preserve a German life than take one. If the film doesn't quite cohere as supernatural logic (and the pit-to-hell of the climax is a bit obvious), it makes the interesting point that you have to reject the military line in order to save yourself–and in so doing surpasses the standard line of the genres that it clumsily combines. Deathwatch might be less than a triumph as dramaturgy, but it's almost dissident in its focus. Killing time was never so rewarding, if only as a suggestion that you kill nothing else.

THE DVD
Lions Gate's Deathwatch DVD is only of middling quality. The 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced image features blacks that are far too thick and sticky–a serious flaw in a film that takes place in walls of dark mud and mostly at night. Although definition is reasonably good in the well-lit scenes, they are in short supply. Meanwhile, the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix is quite powerful during the opening charge, with shots ricocheting around the four corners of the room, but when the film becomes a bunch of soldiers standing around and shouting at each other, the rear channels go into retreat.

Extras begin with five deleted scenes prefaced by text introductions from someone I'm assuming is writer-director Bassett. These intros have an edge on the clips that proceed them, as they detail how the film's backers wound up axing Bassett's favourite moments. (That being said, there's some gruesome pleasure to be had in the extended Andy Serkis barbed-wire mangling scene, in which the actor literally explodes.) Next come two yak-tracks, marked, with a minimum of accuracy, "Production Commentary" and "Actor Commentary." The latter turns out to be Bassett and actors Jamie Bell and Laurence Fox slapping backs and cracking wise: they give the impression that the whole enterprise was male-bonding for a bunch of good blokes by joking about the Czech extras (sorry, "Czechstras"), the cold and mud, and the craziness of Method-madman Serkis. A few interesting points are lost in the pub-crawl atmosphere. Serkis, surprisingly, provides the only voice on the "Production" yakker–I assumed he was Bassett until he referred to the reading of the script that Bassett had written. Equally surprising: his willingness to curse one of the production companies when its logo comes up and, in sharp contrast to the other commentary, his grim take on the harsh conditions. There's substance here, though it's a little sparse. Rounding out the platter: trailers for Ghost Rock, Godsend, and Nine Lives.

96 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1; CC; DVD-9; Region One; Lions Gate