Capture Of The Green River
Killer (2008/Lifetime DVD Set) + New Tricks – Season Three (2006/Acorn
Media DVD Set) + Killing Jar
(2010/Image Entertainment DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C+/B-/C+ Extras: D/C/D Main Programs: C-/C/C-
As I was
writing this piece about recent thriller works that don’t work, I saw that the
Green River Killer has admitted to a 49th (!!!) killing. The madness never ends. Unfortunately, Lifetime Network took on the
subject in the mini-series Capture Of
The Green River Killer (2008) and made it as boring as they usually make
everything.
When it
is not a predictable formula work, it wants to be Silence Of The Lambs, every police procedural you have ever heard
of and a drama that plays it safe despite the grim nature of the material… a
contradictory thing. Once again, a true
story is rendered dull.
We join New Tricks in a Season Three set. This
send-up of police procedurals (which did have a second season DVD set in the
U.S. from BBC we never saw and first season no one seems to have seen here) is
late as the real thing became silly just before this aired. The four main detectives are retired and back
in action, something we have seen often (from the feature Red to any other “one last job” bit that has become played out
beyond belief). Unless you were
entertainingly subjected to the real thing, you will find this as dull as I did
and even if you were, should still be bored.
This set has 8 hour-long shows over 3 DVDs.
Finally
there is The Killing Jar (2010),
with Michael Madsen once again playing another cold killer trapping people in a
diner. Here we go with another
stuck-in-a script! Director Mark Young
wants to add all kinds of twists as if everyone here is a clever con artist or
he is that clever behind the camera. It is
never too smug, but Usual Suspects
it is not and it just goes on and on and on.
Even with a fair cast including Danny Trejo and a boring Jake Busey,
there is nothing to see here.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is very soft in all cases with gutted color and motion
blur, which is another sign of the bad, tired trend they all follow. All have
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo save Jar
with a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is shockingly lite, but Tricks actually has the best recording with healthy Pro Logic
surrounds. River has no extras, Jar
only has a trailer and Tricks
includes text cast filmographies and a 20 minutes long behind-the-scenes
featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo