Haven
(2004)
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C Film: C
The
producers of Crash in a few years
may be accused of Robert Altman abuse.
Sure, Crash was a good film,
but watering down the multi-storyline style further and further Altman was a
master and architect of is a big mistake.
Writer/director Frank E. Flowers makes that mistake with Haven, a 2004 exercise in such
storytelling that implodes as it goes on.
Bill Paxton is an executive about to go on the run, take his daughter
Pippa (Agnes Bruckner) and a ton of money with him to The Cayman Islands. She falls for a hustler while another
resident (Orlando Bloom) falls for a pretty young lady (Zoë Saldana) who
unfortunately is related to a family up to no good, including a brother
(Anthony Mackie) who can’t stand him. It
starts up all these storylines without any surprises, much predictability and
fells like every other film of its type we have seen lately. The characters are boring, criminal culture
is boring, Paxton is not in the film enough disappearing for a shockingly long
time, Bloom again lands a role that does not challenge his talents as it should
and I was disappointed all around. You
have to see it to believe it and filmmakers should so they can see how not to
do this kind of film. It gives you new
respect for Cameron Crowe’s Singles,
but not Vanilla Sky.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is superior to the lame 1.33 X 1
flipside of the disc, though once again the image has its color degraded and
monochrome colors have been added (likely digitally) that are so lame and tired
that it could put you to sleep. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 has at least ambient surrounds throughout and one too many
tossed-away Reggae songs for its own good.
I wanted to watch The Harder They
Come as soon as this ended. The only
extras are trailers for this and a couple of other Fox releases, plus a making
of piece that has better color quality.
- Nicholas Sheffo
