The White River Kid (1999) |
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The White River Kid (1999) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Comedy |
Dolby Digital Trailer-Rain Theatrical Trailer |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1999 | ||
| Running Time | 94:59 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Arne Glimcher |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Bob Hoskins Antonio Banderas Ellen Barkin Kim Dickens Beau Bridges Swoosie Kurtz Randy Travis Wes Bentley Chad Lindberg |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | Rental | Music | John Frizzell |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 1.78:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.85:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | Yes | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes | ||
Morales is looking to better himself. Having 'immigrated' from south of the border, he has worked with Brother Edgar at his stand selling socks, but dreams of more. Visiting a mobile library, he borrows a book on what he thinks is immigration. Instead, he has borrowed a book on litigation and begins to see himself as a future lawyer.
During a rest stop on the way out of town, the pair are held up by a mysterious youth who emerges from the White River and Brother Edgar realizes that he's being held up by the infamous killer, the White River Kid. With a little fast talking, the good Brother is able to trade some socks and a little bit of cash for safe passage. Lightning strikes twice however, as Brother Edgar and Morales eat at a roadside diner only to realize that the White River Kid (Wes Bentley) is at the same restaurant, and the law is coming for him! In a sudden wave of care for his fellow man, Brother Edgar warns the Kid about the police lying in wait for him. This all backfires as the Kid, now on the run from the law, hitches (hi-jacks) a ride in the St. Mortimer van along with a young waitress (Kim Dickens) from the diner. It's four on the road in a search for love, acceptance, money and freedom. The problem is, not all of the of van's occupants agendas match, and friendships and loyalties will be challenged. None of them will come out unchanged, and some just might not come out of it all alive!
How the hell this film ever got a green light I'll never know. The makings of a good film are all here: top cast who are all capable of quality performances, a director with limited experience but a good resume in terms of past features, a good soundtrack, some at times quite good cinematography from a seasoned director of photography. All the makings are there, it's just that in the end it all falls to pieces. This film can't decide what it wants to be. Road Trip? Black Comedy? Screwball Comedy? Thriller? Drama? Art house? Folk Tale? In the end it tries to be all of the above and fails on every account.
Based on the novel The Little Brothers of St. Mortimer by John Fergus Ryan, this must have been a reasonable story (I have not read the book) to develop into a motion picture. Maybe it is one of those classic works that plays out great in print but fails to translate to the big screen. Sometimes you can get away with filming the unfilmable, as Trainspotting, Naked Lunch and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas bear testament, but this film falls so flat, it actually puts a dent in the floor. Both Bob Hoskins (Casting) and Antonio Banderas (Executive Producer) have production credits here, so it's not only performances that are substandard. I've always had time for Hoskins, but this film just plain doesn't work (and his English accent inappropriately pokes through several times during the film).
A cast of great actors this film has, but a good film it is not. You will not be missing out on anything if you don't see this film and it comes with my worst advisory: Avoid.
This disc presents the film in 1.78:1 with 16x9 enhancement. The film's original theatrical aspect ratio looks to have been 1.85:1, although I could not confirm this.
The image presented on this disc is quite good, with a clean and clear picture throughout. This is quite important, as there is some quite nice cinematography. There are several long distance shots, and all of these exhibit a good level of detail. There are a couple of darker scenes and these display a competent level of shadow detail. I had no issues with low level noise.
Colour is used very naturally, and stays far from exaggeration. Colour has been rendered very well, with an appropriate natural colour palette.
While this disc is only single layered, the compression rate is reasonable, and the data rate runs at an average of 5.50 Mb/s with peaks at 7.95 Mb/s. With a fairly short film, minimal extras and only one soundtrack option available, this disc is far from being packed and we don't suffer in regards to compression artefacts. The image is very stable and even edge enhancement is held to a reasonable level (if such a thing exists). There is the occasional shimmer of aliasing, but not to a huge extent.
There is only one subtitle option here, that being an English for the Hearing Impaired stream. This is reasonably accurate, though not word for word. Thankfully, this stream covers both the spoken word as well as the lyrics from some of the songs (mostly from country music great Randy Travis).
This disc is formatted single layer and therefore layer change is not an issue.
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There is only one soundtrack for this film, that being an English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.
The dialogue is for the most part easily understood, with the heavy regional accents only getting in the way a couple of times. I thought that the sync was quite good, with the spoken word matching lip movements very well.
Music for this film comes from two different sources. The first is the film's traditional score, which was composed by prolific soundtrack composer John Frizzell. Frequent film goers will recognize the name from some recent big budget films such as Dante's Peak, Alien: Resurrection, Gods and Generals and Cradle 2 the Grave. The score is quite good and suits the material well. Country singer Randy Travis also provides many of the film's songs and these are also quite good and entertaining (probably one of the only good things about the film).
While this disc offers a 5.1 mix, the rears don't do a lot on their own and instead take on a supporting atmospheric role, which suits the film.
The LFE channel comes to use during some of the musical passages, but as with the surround channels, it plays the appropriate supporting role and never unduly calls attention to itself.
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Theatrical Trailer - 1:58
This is a very slick trailer that capitalizes on the film's main stars, producers and directors ("From the director of Just Cause and the producer of Arthur and A League of Their Own comes a film..."). You know, the usual. The trailer does its best to put the film in the best light, but even then you can see the turkey shinning through. Presented in 1.85:1 with 16x9 enhancement. Audio is English Dolby Digital 2.0.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
This disc was released in Region 1 in October 2001 with the title White River. The Region 1 disc features many more extras than our Region 4 anaemic offering. The Region 4 version misses out on:
The Region 1 version misses out on:
This isn't a hard one to pick. Whilst not bursting at the seams, the Region 1 U.S. disc features many more extras not even hinted at with the Region 4 disc. For anyone interested in the production of the film, the Director's Commentary would be a real plus. Although I thought the film was total crap, I always hate getting robbed of the insights of the film's creators as it gives the viewer a look as to what they were trying to achieve. If you don't care about commentaries, then the fact that the Region 1 disc has one might not be of consequence, but if you want this film in its best package then Region 1 is by far the better choice.
This is a most ordinary film with very little to recommend it. The stars are big and the behind-the-scenes people have a good pedigree, but this film is a real stinker. When a film with stars like this doesn't get a cinematic release in its country of origin, you know that something is amiss. Watch this film and see just how amiss it can get. I said it before and I'll say it again: Avoid. The video is good with a clean and sharp image available throughout. The audio is good with a workable 5.1 mix on offer. The extras are almost non-existent, with only a Theatrical Trailer.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Panasonic DVD RP-82 with DVD-Audio on board, using S-Video output |
| Display | Beko TRW 325 / 32 SFT 10 76cm (32") 16x9. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Yamaha RX-V2300 Dolby Digital and dts. |
| Amplification | Yamaha RX-V2300 110w X 6 connected via optical cable and shielded RCA (gold plated) connects for DVD-Audio |
| Speakers | VAF DC-X Fronts (bi-wired), VAF DC-6 Center, VAF DC-2 Rears, VAF LFE-07 Dub (Dual Amp. 80w x 2) |