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Final Cut
R0 - Australia - DV1 Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (13th February 2006). |
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The Film
 "Final Cut" is on the surface, a thriller about the death of an actor, but beneath this the film is an intense drama about the twisted relationships of his close group of friends and the truths they hide from one another. The film is shot in a documentary style which lends to it an air of stark realism. The quest for realism is aided by the fact that all the actors seem to play themselves (or, at least, caricatures of themselves) and ultimately this leads, at least for this reviewer, to a more in depth cinematic experience as an overwhelming suspension of disbelief makes it far more difficult to divorce fiction and reality. I was frankly surprised and mildly disappointed - to discover that Jude Law was not in fact dead but currently enjoying a rather healthy career in acting. The story begins at Jude's (Jude Law) wake where his grieving widow Sadie (Sadie Frost) gathers with their circle of companions, also grieving, to watch the documentary that Jude was making before his untimely passing. The wake itself is being shot by a film crew commissioned by Sadie to complete a work that has ultimately become the story of Jude's final days. Although this may seem fitting it does mean that bizarrely, this is one of the few memorial services where the mourners must sign release forms. Over the course of the film we learn through a combination of the dead man's footage and interviews taken at the wake that everyone has something to hide and that there is always disparity between word and deed. As you may have gathered from the character's names one of the films basic premises is that the actors are playing themselves. 'Acting Natural' which we all know is a contradiction in terms is by and large handled well by the cast. Much of the dialogue is improvised. This means that the more emotionally charged pieces are neither particularly eloquent nor coherent and are laced with many colourful profanities (which some would say were gratuitous, but not I). This adds to the realism of the film, but unfortunately has a detrimental effect on the dramatic build of the plot. There were no outstanding acting performances; however there were some memorable ones. Ray (Ray Winstone) played an overbearing English thug with aplomb, although I don't think its tapping the well of Ray Winstone's talent for him to play an overbearing thug (English or not). To be fair though, when he loses his temper on screen he still scares the bejesus out of me. Jude Law's rendition was solid yet uninspiring and Sadie Frost was surprisingly below par. I felt that the most enjoyable characters to watch, after Ray, were the more colourful comic portrayals from Perry Benson, Ray Burdis and Dominic Anciano (the latter two also the co-directors of the film). Stylistically the film is interesting but uninventive sticking to the documentary format of using hand held cameras for the wake filming and concealed cameras for the vast majority of Jude's Film. Much of Jude's performance is done talking to the camera. He gives full exposition of his film and why he is making it. This isn't overly necessary and constantly seeing him explaining what and why he is doing it detracts from the film itself, and frankly would annoy the crap out of anyone who doesn't need continuous narration of a reasonably straight forward premise. In the quest to give greater depth to each role, the film contrasts each character's assertions in the interviews with their candid actions captured on the hidden cameras. This is ultimately ironic. Each character now gives us two dimensions, the truth and the lie. But this polarized view neglects the third dimension; that of motivation, meaning and justification. It is an unfortunate side effect of the approach taken by the directors. It means that what started as an innovative take on the Dogme style falls short of being a well rounded Indie film and instead reveals itself to be a cinematic exercise, mildly dissatisfying in both style and substance. In the end, "Final Cut" finds itself orphaned by both the thriller and drama genres. It is as if the filmmakers have forgotten the adage, "you've gotta know the rules before you can break 'em." The film becomes consigned to that in-between that is the final resting place of so many student films; an interesting idea and an honest attempt at an innovative style, but ultimately lacking the solid foundations of a tightly woven story, and a captivating script that leads to fully fleshed characters. If you want to watch one of the greatest films of all time, do not see this movie. If, on the other hand, you want to spend a quiet Thursday night watching a movie that's a little different, with some quirky characters, a smattering of brutal violence, several large handfuls of obscenity and an interesting conclusion by all means I recommend you get yourself a copy of "Final Cut". Although the case states that this disc is Region 4 encoded it is actually Region Free.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 1.33:1, this full screen transfer is by far one of the worst transfers I've ever seen. The film is ladened with grain, resulting in an ultimately soft image. The film also features copious amounts of compression artefacts and edge enhancement. Although this film was shot on a shoestring budget doesn't mean than the DVD should suffer the same fate. On a positive note colors are well rendered especially skin tones but that's about all the good I can say about this presentation.
Audio
Only one audio track is included on this release, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track, seeing as this film is essentially a documentary style film it's almost nearly 100% dialogue driven with the occasional music track included. So don't expect anything amazing, depth is virtually non-existent, although it's a surround track just about everything is delivered through the front speaker including the music, which was rather disappointing. As far as surround tracks go it's not the best but it's far from the worst. Additionally this disc does not include any subtitles.
Extras
DV1 have only included a minimal amount of extras here, below is a closer look. We have the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute 28 seconds, additionally there are a handful of bonus trailers that include: - "The Honeymoon Killers" which runs for 2 minutes 25 seconds. - "That Was Then This Is Now" which runs for 1 minute 52 seconds. - "Death Train" which runs for 1 minute 52 seconds. Also included are a collection of biographies for the three major stars of this film, you get brief two-page bios for Jude Law, Ray Winstone and Sadie Frost. They are all fairly basic and cover a portion of each actor's careers, and is nothing you can't find on the internet anyway. Rounding out the disc's extras is a one-pager covering the DVD credits.
Overall
"Final Cut" doesn't have any memorable performances or a particularly interesting premise but it does have some entertainment value, fans of Jude may be interested in one of his earlier forays into acting. The DVD from DV1 isn't great by any means, the transfer is below par, the sound is average at best and the extras are paltry, however at under $10 (AUS) you're getting exactly what you pay for.
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