Movie Review: Don't Say A Word (2001)

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Director: Gary Fleder

Starring: Michael Douglas, Brittany Murphy, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Oliver Platt

Running Time: 113 minutes

Synopsis: In New York City, psychiatrist Nathan Conrad (Michael Douglas) is introduced to the case of 18-year-old Elisabeth (Brittany Murphy), a troubled, incommunicative, and violent youth. Nathan and his wife Aggie (Famke Janssen) are then shocked by the kidnapping of their eight year old daughter Jessie by gang leader Patrick (Sean Bean), who wants Nathan to extract from Elisabeth a secret she is hiding about the location of a precious gem. Nathan has limited time to gain Elizabeth's trust and save his daughter.

What Works Well: Slick production quality complements Gary Fleder's assured directing, and the action scenes are expertly staged for maximum excitement. Cross-cutting editing enhances the tense moments. Michael Douglas is reliably sturdy, Famke Janssen contributes beyond the traditional spouse role, and Sean Bean makes for an effective villain.

What Does Not Work As Well: The unnecessarily complicated plot is riddled with logic holes and loose threads, limiting enjoyment to a just-go-with-it exercise. The characters are disappointingly flat, the psychiatry sessions never progress beyond the superficial, and Jennifer Esposito struggles to convince as the detective who gets involved in the case. 

Conclusion: The mix of therapy and thrills rarely excels but does provide passable entertainment.



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The Movies Of Brittany Murphy

All movies starring Brittany Murphy and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Clueless (1995)

Freeway (1996)

Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Don't Say A Word (2001)

8 Mile (2002)

Sin City (2005)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Girl, Interrupted (1999)

A tale of depression, Girl, Interrupted loses momentum by unnecessarily lingering on every scene and celebrating its self-indulgence. Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie are excellent, but a relatively simple and personal story is overblown into a sometimes tiresome melodrama.

Based on the memoire of author Susanna Kaysen, the film is set in the 1960s. Susanna (Ryder) is detached from her parents and depressed, although the causes are only vaguely hinted at. After attempting suicide and under pressure from a psychiatrist, Susanna signs herself into Claymoore Hospital, a facility to treat mental illness. Run by the aloof Doctor Wick (Vanessa Redgrave), the other patients at Claymoore include the hyperactive and rebellious Lisa (Angelina Jolie) and the vulnerable but stoic Daisy (Brittany Murphy).

Lisa has made a habit out of regularly leaving and returning to Claymoore, treating the facility as a home base to run back to whenever her aggressive attitude to life catches up with her. Daisy is working towards being released and living on her own, but is emotionally vulnerable and prone to cutting herself. Nurse Owens (Whoopi Goldberg) is the main link between the patients and the outside world, in turns berating them for breaking the rules and encouraging them to edge closer to dealing with reality. After a series of encounters with the other girls, some exhilarating and others tragic, Susanna starts to find her long way back to better mental health.

Stretched out for more than two hours, Girl, Interrupted often struggles to make its point. In a demonstration of more is less, each one of Susanna's memories and escapades extends well beyond its useful value. While director James Mangold succeeds in painting a picture of a mostly supportive mental illness facility, little else is accomplished. Girl, Interrupted does not attempt to properly explore the triggers for depression or any of the other behaviours on display, nor are the pathways to treatment seriously investigated.

In amongst the long stares, Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie do deliver memorable performances. Ryder's dark glare hints at both the demons tormenting Susanna, and the surprise at landing in a mental facility without fully understanding why. Jolie's Lisa is all about pushing hard against life to avoid staring at her own responsibilities. Replacing glamour with a wiry intensity and radiating menace especially towards those least capable of handling it, Jolie deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

In support and representing the forces of mostly well-intentioned authority, Whoopi Goldberg and Vanessa Redgrave mail in quite predictable performances.

Girl, Interrupted works in patches. Much like a brain drifting in and out of depression, it offers both prescient and dull moments, with the medications generally functioning but not quite in perfect balance.

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Movie Review: 8 Mile (2002)

A one-against-all coming-of-age rap music drama, 8 Mile is a trip to the heart of gritty Detroit, and a vaguely semi-autobiographical account of Eminem's pre-fame life. It is also a well-made, unblinking movie, wading into the day-to-day grind of the struggling underprivileged in a distressed city. Out of the agony, the inspirational Lose Yourself won the academy award for Best Song, and may well be one of the all-time best film-inspired songs.

8 Mile Road is the commonly accepted cultural and racial dividing line between Detroit and its northern suburbs. The population south of 8 Mile is predominantly black with a high poverty rate; north of 8 Mile is where the wealthy white people live. Jimmy Smith Jr., better known by his rap nom de guerre B-Rabbit (Eminem), is white but very much on the south side of 8 Mile. He has just split with his girlfriend who may be pregnant; he is forced to live in the trailer of his white-trash mom (Kim Basinger) and her good-for nothing boyfriend; and he is barely hanging on to his job in a metal-stamping factory. And to make matters worse, Rabbit chokes during a rap contest, damaging his reputation as an up-and-coming rapper.

Rabbit does have his small circle of friends, including Future (Mekhi Phifer), who hosts the rap contests, and the aggravating Wink (Eugene Byrd), who is good at name-dropping apparent contacts in the rap world, but little else. Rabbit also meets the slutty Alex (Brittany Murphy), who is willing to have sex anywhere and with whoever may help her get out of Detroit. Most of Rabbit's life seems to be heading from bad to worse, including his ever-failing car, and he has several violent run-ins with a group of rappers called Free World. But Future insists that Rabbit participate in one more rap contest, providing him a final chance to overcome his fear of failure and turn his life around.

Director Curtis Hanson captures Detroit as a bleak city that has been chewed up and spit out by the industrial age, a crime-infested, hostile environment with abandoned homes that serve as convenient murder scenes and shuttered businesses that now stand as a painful reminder of the more prosperous past. It's a grim backdrop for a movie, and Eminem, in his acting debut as B. Rabbit, thrives in it. His performance mixes perfect doses of edginess, self-doubt, despair and gradually increasing determination.

Kim Basinger is also compelling as Rabbit's mother Stephanie, a woman struggling to breathe with her nose pressed hard into the bottom of life's barrel. It's a role that's painful to watch, and Basinger shines in it, providing a welcome blush to the middle of her career. Brittany Murphy, who tragically died in 2009, leaves behind one of her more memorable screen turns as Alex, representing the never-ending conveyor belt of desperate women who believe that a better world awaits on the coast, and who are willing to use their physical assets to get there.

The relationships in Rabbit's life all offer something different, but only one, his friendship with Future, offers hope and progress. There are no heroics in 8 Mile, just reminders that no matter how grim life is, there are always nuggets of hope that offer a way to a brighter tomorrow. Identifying the nuggets through the clutter is the biggest challenge standing in the way of those who live south of 8 Mile Road.

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