DVD Picks & Pans: Fall Potpourri

Tom Miller

The best of this week's new DVD releases include two dramatizations of actual events and a sci-fi fantasy. 

1) "A Mighty Heart"
2) "The Hoax"
3) "Transformers"

"A Mighty Heart," DVD, Paramount Home Entertainment, $29.99

Political filmmaker Michael Winterbottom ("The Road to Guantanamo," "In This World") brings his docu-drama style to the tragic story of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.  Pearl, the Journal's Southeast Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped by al-Qaeda thugs in Karachi, Pakistan, in January 2002, and later murdered.  A gruesome video of his decapitation was widely circulated via television and internet. 

Winterbottom's film, based on a memoir by Pearl's widow, French journalist Mariane, focuses on the frantic five-week search that followed Pearl's disappearance. 

The film proceeds in the style of a police-procedural as it recreates the intense efforts of Mariane (Angelina Jolie) and colleague Asra Nomani (Archie Panjabi), Pakistani police, and agents from the FBI and the U.S. State Department's security services to track down Danny's kidnappers and location.  To his credit, Witterbottom maintains a high level of suspense throughout despite the fact that the audience already knows Danny's fate. 

The acting is solid and occasionally inspired.  English actress Archie Panjabi is excellent as Danny's colleague Asra Nomani, and Indian actor Irrfan Khan steals scenes as a Pakistani cop known only as Captain. 

The movie, of course, belongs to Jolie as Danny's pregnant wife.   With her dark complexion and French accent, Jolie bears a striking resemblance to the Cuban-Belgian Mariane Pearl.  Beyond that, she hits all the right notes in an emotional roller-coaster. 

Given the polemical nature of much of Winterbottom's previous work, "A Mighty Heart" is surprisingly even-handed.  The movie's most dishonest moment comes when Mariane tells an interviewer  that it's the "misery" of places like Karachi—a densely-packed, third-world city made all the more claustrophobic and menacing by Winterbottom's use of hand-held cameras and rapid editing—that produces terrorists. 

Forget that the 9/11 hijackers tended to be middle-class and college-educated.  That Osama bin Laden is the scion of a wealthy Saudi businessman.   That Omar Saeed Sheikh, the mastermind behind Pearl's kidnapping, is a British citizen, the son of a prosperous businessman, and has never known economic misery

Despite a few missteps, "A Mighty Heart" is a powerful and instructive movie.  The evil that threatens our way of life and the reason we fight today is there for all to see, even if Winterbottom partially obscures the roots of that evil. 
Military.com Rating: ***½

(DVD extras include a "making of" featurette: "Journey of Passion: The Making of A Mighty Heart.")

************************************

"The Hoax," DVD, Miramax/Distributed by Buena Vista Home Entertainment, $29.99

Director Lasse Hallstrom's ("The Cider House Rules," "Chocolat") dramatization of one of publishing's most infamous hoaxes—author Clifford Irving's bogus 1970s autobiography of reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes—arrives in DVD after a modest theatrical run.

When his publisher rejects his latest manuscript, a dejected Irving (Richard Gere)—aided and abetted by his friend and researcher Dick Susskind (Alfred Molina)—decides to write a fake autobiography of Hughes.  The eccentric Hughes was by that time so famously reclusive that Irving counted on him to remain silent.

Armed with forged letters from Hughes, Irving lures greedy publishing execs into
a publishing contract and a $1 million advance. 

The action is fast-paced, and often funny, as Irving and Molina try to stay one step ahead of the truth. 

The cast is uniformly solid with first-rate performances from Gere, Molina, Stanley Tucci (who plays publishing exec Shelton Fisher), Marcia Gay Harden (Irving's hippie painter wife), and Julie Delpy (Irving's mistress, an amoral baroness).  

The screenplay by William Wheeler is adapted from Irving's controversial account of the affair, and newsreel footage and contemporary music deftly capture the turbulent period.
Military.com Rating: ***

(DVD extras include "Stranger Than Fiction" a "making of" featurette; journalist Mike Wallace's "Reflections on a Con," his thoughts on his "60 Minutes" interviews with Irving; feature commentary by director Hallstrom and writer Wheeler; and deleted scenes.)

***********************************

"Transformers" (Two-Disc Special Edition), DreamWorks Home Entertainment, $36.99 (Also available in two-disc HD DVD and single-disc DVD)

One of this summer's blockbusters--$650 million and counting in global box office receipts—also arrives on DVD this week: director Michael Bay's ("Pearl Harbor," "Armageddon") technically-brilliant "Transformers."

Updating Hasbro's iconic 1980's "robots in disguise" toy line and integrating them into a human environment, Bay creates a testosterone-fueled, action-packed, interplanetary battle of good vs. evil. 

Teenager Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) finally gets his own car only to discover that it's a giant robot.  Lucky for Sam, his car, a.k.a. Bumblebee, is a good robot.

It turns out that two warring cliques of robots—the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons—have come to Earth in search of an omnipotent cube called the Allspark.  The evil robots believe that Sam has something from an explorer ancestor that will lead them to the Allspark.  The good robots are here to protect Sam and foil the evil Decepticons.

Industrial Light & Magic's artists work their usual magic in creating thoroughly realistic digital images and integrating them seamlessly into scenes with actors and real objects.  And, there's enough spectacular action to please even the most jaded fanboy. 

The robots are the real stars, but LaBeouf ("Disturbia") holds his own.  Megan Fox—as Sam's romantic interest—has little to do except look pretty which is easy enough for her.
Military.com Rating: ***

(Extras include commentary by director Bay; two in-depth documentaries on the casting process, the evolution of the robots from toys to movie action-figures, and the real-world weapons used; and a featurette on the making of the Desert Attack scene.)

Military.com Picks & Pans Rating Scale

* Pan—Save your money & time
** Borderline Pick—Okay but only as a last resort
*** Pick—Worthwhile & enjoyable
****Enthusiastic Pick—Excellent

Copyright 2009 by Tom Miller