The Answer Man (2009/Magnolia DVD)
Picture: C Sound:
C Extras: D Feature: D
Jeff Daniels plays a best selling author in the New Age
religion mode who becomes a hit when he convinces too many people he has talked
to God, but as The Answer Man, he
turns out to be a cynical phony who becomes outright desperate in one of the
worst films Daniels ever made. Shrill,
tired, annoying and an outright waste of time, nothing here is funny and 97
minutes seems like an eternity alright when it goes on and on.
Add a woman and her drug-rehab son and you know this will
not be your usual romantic comedy, or any kind of comedy. Writer/Director John Hindman creates a mess
that has nothing to do with reality with people who don’t talk anything like
this in real life and are as cardboard as a light brown box can get… boring!
Skip this and look for your answers elsewhere.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is surprisingly
soft throughout with phony color and motion blur, plus bad digital graphics
that make this a painful watch. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is very flat and compressed with poorly-recorded dialogue
that sounds like amateur hour. What a
lame combination. Extras include an
HDNet episode plugging its release, two making of featurettes and an inexplicable
audio commentary track.
Ugh!
- Nicholas Sheffo
