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By
WAYNE KLEIN
I've always believed that if
there's an afterlife the dead aren't telling.
"White Noise" suggests that they are but we just
haven't been listening close enough. Jonathan
Rivers (Michael Keaton) gets drawn into the world
of the paranormal when his wife dies in an
accident. It seems she's been trying to contact
him from the beyond in the static of TV and radio.
When Rivers is approached by a paranormal
researcher (Ian McNeice) with actual recordings of
his wife's voice, Rivers becomes unnerved but is
also drawn into the world of "white noise." Rivers
doesn't release that he's opening doors that
sometimes shouldn't be opened and discovers a
world of both comfort and menace.
I'm not going to give this clever little thriller
static over the picture quality; this is an
extremely nice transfer with blacks as deep as the
shadowy ghosts that appear throughout the picture.
The moody cinematography looks particularly sharp.
Despite all the white noise where the
communication from the dead is buried, the sound
is quite good with nice use of the 5.1 format.
Dialogue is crisp and clear.
Some interesting extras for the paranormally
inclined: we get "Hearing is Believing," "Making
Contact" and "Recording the Afterlife at Home."
The first features E.V.P. paranormal researchers
Tom and Lisa Butler who have founded an
organization to investigate E.V.P. This
documentary, which looks like it was produced for
the Sci-Fi Channel, provides info on E.V.P.
although very little of it is compelling. What's
fascinating is how people will buy into this
fiction as fact. The evidence is sketchy at best
and just goes to show how far people will go to
convince themselves there is an afterlife.
"Recording the Afterlife at Home" sounds like a
bad video you'd buy on line or on TV. Again, the
Butler's appear and explain their technique for
recording voices from "beyond." "Hearing is
Believing," again, appears as if it was produced
as a program for syndication or the Sci-Fi
Channel. There are also promos for the remake of
"Assault on Precinct 13" and the re-release of
"Casino."
Keaton and director Sax did their commentary at
the same time with Keaton in L.A. and Sax in
London watching the film at the same time. It's
surprisingly interactive and engaging. Sax
restricts most of his comments to the technical
side of the production including how they came up
with the unnerving title sequence. Keaton focuses
much more on the story elements and how the
characters interact although he also compliments
Sax and members on the crew on the nice work they
did in presenting the story. There are stretches
where neither Keaton nor Sax say anything popping
up almost like the white noise of the title.
Keaton throws in a number of amusing asides during
his commentary but both play it pretty straight
throughout the commentary track.
A solid thriller despite some script
inconsistencies and a poorly laid out third act,
"White Noise" asks some interesting questions and
works very well as a thriller. Don't let the PG-13
rating fool you; this is a thriller and works
very, very well although gore fans will be
disappointed. The gorier scenes that had to be cut
(and they don't amount to much) to go from an R to
a PG-13 are included intact in the deleted scenes
section of the extras as well. |
