Spread (2009/Anchor Bay Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture: B/C+
Sound: B/B- Extras: C- Film: C-
Hard as it is to believe, Ashton Kutcher can act when he
really tries, but most of the time, he is either playing a dummy or coasting on
gimmicks. He was good in Guess Who (2005) no matter what people
thought of the film, but outside of voice work for animation, his filmography
is amazingly poor considering his name recognition. Give or take that long ended television sitcom, he is a name looking for a
project and David Mackenzie’s Spread
(2009) is the latest attempt to do something with him. So what does he play?
A drifting womanizer who lives off of other women and is a
burnout. Wow, what a stretch from his
commercial persona, marriage notwithstanding.
Then this takes place in Los Angeles and Hollywood, completing the
stereotypical set-up, which is tired and made much worse by the “I am smarter
than everyone else” voice-over work.
Anne Heche, Margarita Levieva, Maria Conchita Alonso and Hart Bochner
are among the supporting cast that cannot save this formula work and it is
arguable how much of a comedy it is, despite identifying itself as such.
Part of the problem is that Producer Paul Kolsby is a
“reality TV” producer and their cross-over into narrative filmmaking never
works. Kutcher may have the same problem
on some level. Kolsby even co-wrote the
story with James Dean Hall, both of whom have nothing new to say about anything
and this lands up being like a hundred other films on the subject, many of
which were better or more original. I
never believed anything I was seeing for a minute, except a bunch of missed
opportunities to tell a story in a different way, but the makers were clueless
on this and it shows.
The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image was shot
by Director of Photography Steven Poster (Donnie
Darko, The Box) and he proves
once again that he can pull off a darker look that is unique and helps the
narrative. Too bad this film has very
little of one and this is a bit soft and noisy either form the shoot (Super
35mm film or even HD) and/or the transfer itself, which is much weaker on the
anamorphically enhanced DVD that does not do justice to how good this looks on
the Blu-ray. The Dolby TrueHD 7.1 tries
stretching out the sound too much, including the dialogue scenes and the budget
was simply not here to make the sound that good. A lossless type format only makes that more
evident, while the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD is also problematic, but
does not sound as stretched as weak as it can be. Extras include a feature length audio
commentary with Kutcher, Heche and Levieva and three making-of featurettes.
- Nicholas Sheffo
