Five Fingers (2006/Lionsgate DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: D Film: D
Ryan
Phillippe is an underrated actor and is getting lost in the shuffle of newer,
lesser talents. It is also not helping
that he takes on projects that do not help his career and one of the oddest and
most failed is as a Dutch pianist kidnapped by Islamic Terrorists and tortured
in Laurence Malkin’s Five Fingers
(2006), a tired predictable, lame, here comes a stupid twist a mile away,
thinks it is saying something pseudo-thriller with Laurence Fishburne (who
co-produced) as one of the terrorists.
Despite
both being good actors, both seem odd, out of their element and never
believable, undermined by bad directing, an awful script and an overall flat
production with zero energy and a touch of torture porn that also never
works. I never believed Phillippe as
being Dutch and could have cared less from that point on. This never improves, only gets worse and
should be avoided.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image was is on the weak side, even when color
is consistent. I was not happy with the
look and the few locations are not enough to give this a palpable sense of
being anywhere. The Dolby Digital 5.1
mix is better than the Dolby 2.0 Stereo is better, but it not that great to
begin with. Even when surrounds and
music are good, dialogue sounds comparatively weak. Extras are few (thankfully) and include a
trivia track and making of featurette.
- Nicholas Sheffo
