|
 Movie B- |
Video A- | Audio B+
| Extras B
Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker,
Raymond Barry, Josh Lucas, Peter Donat
directors Scott McGehee & David Siegel | Fox Searchlight
2001 | Psychological Thriller | R | 101 minutes
Region 1 | DVD-9
| anamorphic
widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio
Dolby Digital 5.1
Summary: The Deep End is a chilling
psychological thriller that explores the depth of a mother's love and the
redemption qualities of a career criminal thug. Margaret Hall (Swinton)
is a lonesome wife of a naval aviator and a devoted mother of three
children. When her seventeen-year old son Beau becomes involved in a
homosexual relationship with a night club owner, she does
everything she can to break off her son's relationship. Things
become more complicated when the night club owner mysteriously
dies on the premise of her home. To protect her son, Margaret dumps
the body. Obviously things aren't that easy. A few days
later, a couple of blackmailers show up on her doorsteps demanding payment
or else... During the course of trying to gather the money, she
faces several unbelievable events and the changes in the relationships
between herself and her son, and with her blackmailers. There is one strong
homosexual sex scene (in Chapter 10) that I found extremely difficult to watch. Those
who are offended by homosexuality may want to avoid this movie
altogether. Acting performances are uneven at best. Some
scenes worked well, but others, including a key scene in Chapter 15,
failed to elicit my empathy in the characters and their situation. I lost my suspense of disbelief.
From that point on, I found myself murmuring the word "preposterous"
multiple times for the duration of the movie. Ironically, I found the bonus
materials in some ways more compelling than the feature film, as the directors/writers,
cinematographer, and editor explain the emotional effects that they wanted to
achieve.
Special Features: commentary by David
Siegel and Scott McGehee, "The Anatomy of a Scene" Sundance
Channel, featurette, theatrical trailer, TV spot "Review", still
gallery, Fox flix: Sexy Beast, Boys Don't Cry, Stealing
Beauty, Quills.
DVD released on 4/16/2002 | Reviewed 4/15/2002
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Additional Notes: Unless we specify otherwise, the
video and audio quality are very good when their grades are "A-"
or better. Only the highest number of channels of surround sound
format is listed (e.g., Dolby Digital 5.1). If there are both Dolby
Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 soundtracks, then both are listed. All
DVD-Video discs are backwards compatible with stereo-only playback
systems.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES STR-V444ES A/V receiver, four
B&W CDM 9NTs as left/right main speakers
and left/right surrounds, B&W CDM CNT center channel speaker, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable
Interlink 400 MKII interconnects, Monster Cable
Original speaker cables in bi-wire configuration with Monster Cable twist-on gold-plated banana plug
connectors, Lovan Sovereign T HiFi audio
rack, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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