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Boys Are Back (The)
R1 - America - Buena Vista Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (17th February 2010). |
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The Film
 For the most part, actor’s careers follow a pattern. For some it’s a sharp peak followed by a swift descent into bit parts, while others plateau and very few just keep on rising. With Clive Owen it’s more like a mountain range that can have huge rises to prominence and stay at a good elevation, only to rapidly drop and suddenly rise back up. For the “King Arthur” (2004) gulches there’s an everest like “Children of Men” (2006), surrounded by the high altitude “Sin City” (2005) and “Inside Man” (2006), only to plunge back down with “The Pink Panther” (2006). Every time it seems like Clive Owen is down, he starts getting back up. After a plunge into regular romantic comedy with “Duplicity” (2009), Owen comes back with a good drama like “The Boys Are Back” (2009) about a grieving father and his connections with his sons. It sounds generic, but Owen really lives the performance in a film that's nicely script and features a good supporting cast. As a reporter Joe Warr (Clive Owen) spends a good amount of time away from his home in the Australian country with wife Katy (Lara Fraser) and 6 year old son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty), but they all seem to have a close and loving relationship. When Joe’s wife suddenly dies, he has trouble dealing with the loss while his son seems to be coping with it fairly well. Still Joe starts realizing his son’s distress, the two start trying to connect and cope together. Soon, Joe’s other son from a previous marriage comes to visit the two in Australia. Harry (George MacKay), whose mother and Harry Joe left in England when Harry was 6, has become a bit distant from Joe, missing out on some full years of living together. The three start bonding as Joe is still grieving, occasionally seeing and speaking with his dead wife as he tries to figure things out. Maybe it’s just Clive Owen’s performance, but the stock sounding story actually works. Owen pulls off some amazing scenes, especially early in the film. After Katie is released from the hospital, soon to fall asleep and die, Joe lies watching her in bed, apparently all night as she slowly dies in his arms. Again, it sounds a little corny, but Clive Owen brings it all in for a great performance. He’s the reason the movie really works since it’s all centered on his character, elevating what could be an otherwise mediocre film. Combine his acting talent with the nice hallucinations or ghost visitations from his dead wife and you get an elevated film. Owen doesn’t do it all alone though as Fraser’s few scenes, probably adding up to only 15 or so minutes of full film time, but she brings the noise in each scene with some great chemistry with Owen and nice apparition sequences. As a child actor McAnulty does a great job of actually acting like a child rather than pulling out what passes for child acting. He seems natural in the role, in part due to his talent and part is props to director Scott Hicks for allowing him to roam on his own. The older brother MacKay does a nice job, at first he’s easily mistaken for Rupert Grint and it takes a few minutes to settle in with him not at Hogwarts, but he still does a nice job. However the actors can’t pull the movie along on their own, Allan Cubitt’s script does a nice job of bringing the core elements through the film and letting the actors bring power to their performances. What gets lost in the meanwhile is the sideplot of Joe’s job as a sportswriter, apparently a great sportswriter. Throwing in a couple scenes raving about Michael Phelps or Serena Williams is nice, and not bad sportswriting on it’s own, but it needs to be integrated better into the film. It works into the plot with Joe having to balance work, leading to a crisis later on with Harry watching Artie and Joe needing to work. When this becomes a crux of the film’s later plot it gets a bit tenuous in continuity, though still Owen, MacKay and McAnulty pull through. While I expected the film to be something bland, a generic father-son relationship story, the nice performances bring something more to the film. Hicks does a good job of letting the actor’s performances come naturally, raising the level of the script above it’s flaws and into serious dramatic territory. The film is still far from perfect, little nagging script flaws and some slow moments hold the film back from being a contender, but damn Owen is good in this movie. Peaking somewhere below “Children of Men” and “Closer” (2004), it may not be Owen’s best performance, but for the amount of good supporting actors and the decency of the script it makes him shine a bit more above the rest. Still, the film ended strongly and put together good directing and solid cast to make one final run for Miramax as it was the last film they released before closing down early this year.
Video
Hicks’ visual style manages to fit the dramatic sense of the performances well, not intruding on the actors, but looking nice within the 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio on the DVD transfer. The natural lighting of the Australian outback and the clarity of the sporting events come through well, with surprisingly little grain, dust or flecks in the DVD version. It’s hard not to use natural for the fifth time, but all of the colors have that natural feel, never overblown or muted, with good contrast and clarity to pull together an impressive DVD transfer that is not yet on Blu-ray but I suspect has the potential to look amazing if it looks like this on DVD.
Audio
The English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is well put together, effectively bringing together the Sigur Rós soundtrack and Hal Lindes’ original scoring. I don’t listen to Sigur Rós outside of the film, but it’s well put together in the film and works for the sort of mourning and depression that exists in the film as well as some of the higher moments twinged with sadness. The transfer itself isn’t quite as effective as the visuals, though all the levels are in order it doesn’t quite have the crispness for some of the instrumental background tracks that are used or the sound effects that sometimes pop out a little too much or are slightly too muted. But these sort of nitpicky complaints shouldn’t detract too much from an overall good sound quality. Also included is a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 track as well as English for the hearing impaired and Spanish subtitles.
Extras
Sadly Miramax must have gone under before they could pull together a full featured disc, because this one is a bit lacking. I liked the film enough to watch through again with an audio commentary but there’s none to be found, instead including a sparse 2 featurettes and bonus trailers. First is “‘The Boys are Back’ A Photographic Journey” featurette playable with narration from director Scott Hicks or alone with music from the film, both versions run for 16 minutes and 23 seconds. The featurette is essentially a slideshow of stills taken on set of the film, showing scenes from the film as well as behind-the-scenes look. As close to a commentary as you will get, Hicks talks about the importance of making the film in his homeland of South Australia, building the home that the film is set in, the natural environment and everything related to making the film and how he wanted the film to feel. It’s almost a super-condensed commentary, bringing in stories and anecdotes in Hicks’ softspoken voice. The images are nice, but the just music version I think is under-serving the film. The version with narration is a good touch but leaves me wanting a bit more of a broader commentary on the film, though this is still nice. “A Father, Two Sons On Set” featurette runs for 1 minute and 44 seconds, briefly looking at Simon Carr, the author of the novel the film was based on, along with his two sons watching the film being made, seeing the actors on set and meeting with the director. Shockingly short, this disc needs more featurettes but this is nice looking at the actors on set and seeing how well they get along with the actual people they are based on. Still, while the these are two small quality pieces, I wanted a bit more, a full commentary or expanded featurettes, especially actor interviews considering the two young actors who pop up well in the film. Bonus trailers on the disc are: - “The Last Song” runs for 1 minute and 42 seconds. - “Surrogates” runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds. - “Everybody’s Fine” runs for 1 minute and 22 seconds. - “Like Stars on Earth” runs for 1 minute and 16 seconds. - “When In Rome” runs for 2 minutes and 33 seconds. - “Disney Blu-ray” spot runs for 1 minute and 2 seconds. - “Gary Unmarried: The Complete 1st Season” runs for 1 minute and 10 seconds.
Overall
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