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Looking For Eric
Blu-ray B - Australia - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Stevie McCleary & Noor Razzak (30th August 2010). |
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The Film
 More buddy movies should have one half of the team being imaginary. Sure, it has been done before but I think a footballer is more suited to this style of comedy than an animated rabbit (but not as good as Humphrey Bogart in Play it Again, Sam). Looking for Eric (2009, 116min) not exactly a comedy but certainly a lighter touch than many probably expected from Ken Loach. Beginning in grim kitchen-sink territory, the movie does get goofier as it unfolds, and serves as a decent pick-me-up while describing how hard and rewarding it can be to set life back on a more preferable course. Not that I think I’ve ever seen a Ken Loach film myself before – I’m running down his biography and can’t see a single thing I know – I’m just going by what other people have told me. Perhaps if I’d seen a number of those films I may have found this one more entertaining by comparison. Unfortunately I don’t seem to get the same feelings of connection and joy that other people have from this film. I did not dislike it, mind you. I just didn’t connect with it as I felt I was going to. And the fact that I can’t seem to work out why exactly…well, it’s not very helpful for this review, I’ll tell you that. Part of it may be that I have no knowledge of the director or Manchester United or Eric Cantona, so I feel like I’m lacking some of the perspective that others would have – as most reviews I’ve read tend to lean heavily on those factors. Story wise it delivers with a show-don’t-tell approach and it’s a gem. Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) the middle-aged and depressed postman isn’t having the best life. He has been divorced twice and his teenage step-sons aren’t the best & brightest he may have hoped for. The daughter from his first marriage, who he’s barely ever seen, has just made him a granddad. It is only when he agrees to mind the baby every afternoon before handing it over to his first wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop) that he realizes he still loves her. The revelation from a group therapy session where he envisions the one man who could help him, coupled with marijuana, causes him imagined visitations from football hero and philosopher Eric Cantona (Eric Cantona) who coaches Bishop into being a better person. Sure beats Tony Robbins, I’ll give it that. Cantona’s confidence rubs off on Bishop and his path to a better life is started. Eric Cantona holds his own, despite not being an accomplished actor, and they do well to parody the philosopher angle that he is apparently well-known for, along with some seriously surreal moments. And it seems that if you know Cantona’s life story than Bishop’s struggle becomes more poignant. Part of the film’s upside is that it does highlight our love of heroes and how what they do is nice and – well, I want to say ‘pure’. We see them up there in their chosen field, performing and winning, and it’s simple and driven. They head towards their goal (sometimes literally) and meet it head on. No wonder so many of us have sporting heroes we dream could appear in front of us and offer us the guidance we assume they’d have. After all, they’d know better than us, yeah? Alas, life is never so simple and that is illustrated here as Bishop’s journey is not the easiest. But redemption never is. And the final message is an uplifting one, and it is well done. It tells the old yet solid message that you need to trust your teammates/friends and you can persevere even when all might be lost. I wish I’d gotten more into this film. The theme and narrative are good. But not every film hits everyone where they live. In particular the final act seems to get a bit out of hand for my liking and I’m not sure about how it suited the tone of the rest of the film, despite the conceit set up with the visions of Cantona. The majority seem to love it though, so I recommend giving it a try!
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 mastered using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The general "look" of Ken Loach films is usually a gritty working class no-frills looks. So don't expect much in terms of outstanding HD image quality, needless to say the image isn't terrible either. Shot on 35mm film the HD transfer faithfully recreates the filmic look and aesthetic intended by Loach. The transfer is crisp, but with a certain level of grain that brings it back from looking perfectly clean, it's nice to see a studio hasn't scrubbed the grain away. Colors look accurate and are nicely rendered, depth looks good, as does detail and textures of the drab locations, shadow details remain consistent. The only problem is that darker scenes suffer a bit more noise than usual and can be a little distracting but yet again it's far from terrible.
Audio
Warner Brothers/Icon have included four audio tracks in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround also mixed at 48kHz/24-bit, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track and an English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track for the sight impaired. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its DTS-HD audio track. Overall the track is suitable for this film, in saying that there isn't too much activity in the surrounds other than some direction effects and score and the lynch crowd scenes towards the end of the film have a pit of punch. Otherwise this is a dialogue-centric track, which is clear and distortion free, there's some depth which opens up the track a bit more, other than that there isn't much to complain as it was as expected. Optional subtitles are included in English for the hearing impaired only.
Extras
Warner Brothers/Icon has released this film with a decent selection of supplements. An audio commentary is included as are a featurette, two short films, a music video, a reel of deleted scenes, a director's selection of scenes, a Q&A and the film's theatrical trailer. Below is a closer look at these added value extras. Audio commentary with director Ken Loach and actor Steve Evets - and is a very traditional style commentary, often just discussing what is happening in front of them just for something to say. Of interest, they explain how they didn’t tell Steve in advance that Eric Cantona was going to be in the film – so the reveal of him was a legitimate shock to the actor (although they couldn’t use that actual shot as he didn’t turn around because he thought it was one of the crew talking to him!). If you enjoy the film then this will give you some interesting insight into their unique process. "United We Stand" (28:38min) - is a featurette looking at football culture with interviews from industry folk, people in pubs and current Manchester United F.C. manager Sir Alex Ferguson. Discussing their love of the game and the impact it has had on their lives. "Another City" (25:47min) - It’s a short film about a week in the life of Bath's Football Club from 1998 that Loach had directed for TV. Interesting for the subject material. "Happy Ending" (3:20) - A really nice short film about a father and son deciding what film to watch. Really good. There's a music video (3:13min) - The main theme of the film set to highlights of Eric Cantona from his career. Deleted scenes reel is also included (11:34min) - These scenes are mainly dialogue scenes and a few outtakes. "Director’s selected shots" follows (11:34) - this is a a selection of clips from the film, some of the funnier bits. "Q&A at the British Film Institute" (48:09) - This is a Q&A clip at the BFI with director Ken Loach, Steve Evets, and Eric Cantona. They cover a variety of topics from their work on the film and what it meant, to the similarity between playing football for real and then playing it in a film. Finally we have the film's original theatrical trailer for the film (1:16).
Overall
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