The Last Fall (2012/Image DVD)/The Words
(2012/CBS/Sony DVD)
Picture: C+/C Sound: C+ Extras: D/C Main Programs: C+/C
Two new
drams come up a little short, but have their moments.
Matthew
A. Cherry’s The Last Fall (2012) is
actually the better of the two with football player Kyle (Lance Gross) finding
himself not being able to play anymore due to politics and age (25 already!?!)
so he needs to find a new place in life with nothing immediately to fall back
on. He has some friends and some family,
but limited opportunities and starts a romance.
However, it is his relationship with his parents that are not helping
with his father in the hospital and mother a mixed affair to deal with as he
moves back home to live with her.
This
tends to be a little predictable and even a bit cliché in parts, but I was
impressed with the acting (including a nice turn by Keith David as the father)
and the casting has some energy making this more convincing than it mighty
otherwise have been. Better than most sports
and indie family dramas I have seen of late, it is worth a look if you are
interested.
There are
no extras.
The Words (2012) on the other hand is about
a good idea that does not necessarily equal a good film. Released in theaters by the too-safe-for-their-own-good
CBS Films, Dennis Quaid plays a writer reading his book about a man (Bradley
Cooper) trying to juggle a writing career, lover (Zoe Saldana) and his family
in hopes of succeeding in the publishing world.
His latest work is rejected, then one day, he finds a manuscript for a
novel about a man in Paris
during WWII and likes it so much he rewrites it as his own and comes up with a
hit book!
Of
course, the real author is still alive and comes looking for him, but not in a
way that is legal as much as it is moral.
Here in two versions, this review is based on the longer cut of the film
and even that one cannot stop this from being more self-contained than it
needed to be and Cooper is out of his element here. Even joined by Olivia Wilde, Michael McKean
and Ron Rifkin, it plays more like an upscale telefilm than something that can
make the big statement. Even if it was
not going for that, it still does not say or do enough with its situation and
ultimately becomes too talky.
Once
again, having two directors (Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal in this case)
probably held this one back too. See it
only if you are very, very curious.
Extras include Ultraviolet Copy, plus the DVD adds two featurettes:
Unabridged and A Gentleman’s Agreement.
The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 on Fall is more
styled down than the softer anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Words, but is a little richer an image
overall despite Video Black being crushed and has some decent shots
throughout. Both also have lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 mixes, but neither tend to really have consistently active
surrounds as both are dialogue-based, yet they are fine for what they are.
- Nicholas Sheffo