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Flywheel
R1 - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Stevie McCleary (26th November 2007). |
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The Film
 "Flywheel" is the story of Jay Austin (Alex Kendrick). Austin is an underhanded Salesman who overcharges his buyers and takes no interest in his son Todd (Richie Hunnewell), or the advice of his wife Judy (Janet Lee Dapper). It's all downhill from there, for both Jay and us, except Jay finds redemption. The only way we could be delivered from this insulting script is to have the foresight to not gaze upon it in the first place. Unto that end, I am your humble prophet. Firstly, being a Christian-made (by the Sherwood Baptist Church of Albany Georgia) film it follows the base plot that they all have. Man bad, has crisis, crisis come because bad man no follow God, crisis averted when man become good. It's a tried and true paint-by-numbers religious method...but that's probably because it's the only plot they can think of. Does Jay accept God into his life to make a change? Well, that's what it says on the back of the DVD cover...you'd hate to have someone be unsure over which side the movie was backing. Does God reward him? Think about who the film was made by? Does he return his technically ill-gotten gains (I say 'technically' as I'm of the school of thought that if someone is happy to pay a price for something then everything is kosher) to everyone who bought over-priced cars from him? These are rhetorical questions, in case you were curious. One of the main problems with a film like this is you wonder who it is made for. The people who are going to pick it up are already believers, to which I guess it is a nice, safe film to enjoy...but non-believers would be hard to convince to watch this in the first place and actually buy what it is selling. On the subject of selling, it is amusing/saddening that the whole plot centers around people being taken for a ride by a charismatic salesman, while without a trace of irony that same man gets his life track altered by a charismatic evangelist who is just selling another product I believe is called 'Faith™' (I hear there has been some issues with the Faith™ product, as there appears to be no way to take it for a test-run to see if it works. It seems that the need for Proof™ cancels out Faith™. Stupid Microsoft). As with many religious pictures, due to the filmmaker's view of the world, the entire cast of characters that are good and happy are comprised of religious persons, the others are filled with the one person having their crisis and all the other lying/cheating/backstabbing/ unhappy people. The constant message is that (and I mean this literally at one point in the film) you cannot be happy without God, cannot make decisions without God, and your family/business will erode without God. They actually say you will lose your kids. I can't help but find this fairly offensive to me, as many people somehow find a way to be good people without religion. They don't need outside influences to force them to be good people. Sure, anything that may help people who do need help...but the emphasis here is that nobody can be happy or successful without the power of Christ compelling them. I'm sorry, as I don't intend to be disrespectful to anybody, but it's difficult when they don't offer the same courtesy. There are a number of plot-holes in the story, not the least of which is that things begin to turn around for Jay after his business is investigated and they discover he's the only honest salesman out there. However, he's only just decided to be honest, so when that person goes snooping through his file cabinet...how is it that they only find things that fall in favor of Jay being a good man? Later on, when inevitably deciding that he must return all the money he feels he took from people, he opens his file cabinet to get all their information! On top of this, his calculations lead him to a figure of how much to repay everyone, a total and individual cost...however, given the amount of time that he has been in business, this ends up suggesting that he used to sell roughly one car a month! Utterly ridiculous. I'd really like to discuss the acting...just kidding, I'd rather do anything other than that. The nicest thing I can say is that you really get the impression they're really trying their hearts out. It's a pity that it doesn't really matter, but bless them anyways. In summary, it turns out that a 'Flywheel' is one of the many parts in a car that lies between the key turning and your engine starting. The metaphor is that, like a flywheel in the film, you must fix a certain part of you before turning that key will get you out on the open road. Funnily enough, the part next to the flywheel is the crank shaft. To think, this film could have been called "Crank Shaft". This fits surprisingly well, as it was made by cranks, and I definitely feel like I got the shaft. It was also 114 minutes long. That's 114 minutes of my life I'm not getting back.
Video
Presented in the film's original ratio of 1.85:1 this transfer is non-anamorphic, and while checking out the back cover I had a good chuckle when I read that it was "Mastered in High Definition", which is somewhat misleading as there's nothing high-def about this transfer. Shot on miniDVD this image is compressed and noisy throughout. The image does not retail any sharpness and there are many scenes that just look awful. The compression artefacts are rampant and thus make the black levels murky and just plain distracting. Colors are bland and I also spotted some pixilation and moiré patterns. Considering this film was shot by a bunch of novices don't expect an immaculate transfer in terms of look and style but at the very least Sony could have enhanced the picture anamorphically.
Audio
A single English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track is included, there's nothing special about this track in fact it's quite bad. Its sounds tinny and weak, dialogue quality fluctuates from decent to barely tolerable especially considering the entire film wounds like it was recorded in someone's basement (which realistically is probably the case). The track is by no means professionally engineered and it shows. This is a below average track that also has no range or depth. Optional subtitles are also included in English, French and Spanish.
Extras
Sony have only included an audio commentary, an introduction, two featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, bloopers, a special message, tv spots and a series of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is a feature-length audio commentary by writer/director/producer/star Alex Kendrick and associate producer Stephen Kendrick. The brothers provide a rather low-tech track as they discuss the making of the film from the initial idea to writing the film and the themes represented here. They comment on the process in which they went through including buying the necessary equipment and learning about filmmaking as they made the film. They basically share their experiences in making their first film and they seem proud of the achievement even though everything has a amateur feel about it from the script to the performances, shot selection and lighting. If you're really interested in hearing what these two have to say then it's worth checking out, otherwise don't bother. Before the film starts you'll find an introduction by the film's writer/director/producer/star Alex Kendrick which runs for 43 seconds, basically thanking the viewer for watching and on how this was their first film. "Alex and Stephen Kendrick Discuss their Film 'Fireproof'" featurette is next and runs for 1 minute 6 seconds and in an annoying enthusiastic manner the brother tell us about their latest film which is coming out soon. The major video extra on this disc is "The Making of Flywheel", a featurette that runs for 33 minutes 46 seconds and interviews the people involved in the film and how the Lord gave them the idea for it, getting the church to back them and raising the money as well as actually making the film in Georgia among other things. It doesn't go into a lot of detail but God features quite heavily in this clip and it does get a bit repetitive. A deleted scenes reel is next and runs for 7 minutes 28 seconds, there are 3 scenes in total that were cut out and feature an introduction from the director, the scenes include one where Bernie teaches Vince how to push people into buying cars, a scenes where Judy talks to her dad on the phone about her husband and Jay sharing a moment with his son after his achievement. Next is an outtakes reel that runs for 9 minutes 20 seconds, and features some extra takes of scenes from the film and unused moments. A bloopers reel follows for 1 minute 41 seconds and includes a series of apologies from the cast as they've flubbed lines or missed cues. Featured on the disc is a "Special Message" clip which runs for 2 minutes 57 seconds and is a religious message about how you have to surrender yourself to God. Also included are 2 tv spots, these advertise the fictitious car dealerships portrayed in the film and include: - "Jay Austin Motors" which runs for 32 seconds. - "Butch Bowers Auto World" which runs for 38 seconds. Rounding out the extras are some bonus trailers for: - "God Grew Tired of Us" which runs for 2 minutes 28 seconds. - "Facing the Giants" which runs for 2 minutes 11 seconds. - "The Second Chance" which runs for 2 minutes 7 seconds.
Overall
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