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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Gift (2000)

The Gift (2000)

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Released 3-Oct-2001

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Thriller Main Menu Audio & Animation
Dolby Digital Trailer-City
Featurette-Making Of
Music Video-Furnace Room Lullaby-Neko Case
Theatrical Trailer
Trailer-Go!
Trailer-Suspect
Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Rating Rated MA
Year Of Production 2000
Running Time 107:03
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (77:24) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4,5 Directed By Sam Raimi
Studio
Distributor

Sony Pictures Home Entertain
Starring Cate Blanchett
Giovanni Ribisi
Keanu Reeves
Katie Holmes
Kim Dickens
Greg Kinnear
Hilary Swank
Case ?
RPI $36.95 Music Christopher Young


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
Russian
Arabic
Hindi
Smoking Yes, occasionally
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    The people behind Rolling Stone magazine saw fit to describe The Gift as being "The smartest and scariest supernatural thriller since The Sixth Sense", which is something like describing a satire as being the best since Psycho Beach Party. This is not because The Gift is bad at all, although it is something of a low point in director Sam Raimi's career as far as entertainment value is concerned, but because The Gift is so superior to The Sixth Sense that neither deserves to be mentioned in the same sentence as the other.

    The Gift revolves around the life of Annie Wilson (Cate Blanchett), a woman whose husband passed away a year ago, and who has since supplemented her small income by providing psychic readings to the townsfolk, who give her donations for her services. The problem with that, however, is that Annie doesn't live in a place like New York, she lives in the Bible Belt, and there are all sorts of nasty people who would have lynched her a while ago if not for such legal precedents as the First Amendment. One such person is Donnie Barksdale (Keanu Reeves), who, apart from being a suitably vapid and wooden role for this actor, regularly beats his wife, Valerie (Hilary Swank) for daring to go out and buy groceries. Thankfully, there are more tolerant locals who are sympathetic to Annie's plight, such as Buddy Cole (Giovanni Ribisi) who, apart from utterly stealing the show, is willing to resort to violence in order to protect her.

    After being called to see the principal of her son's school, however, the proverbial hits the fan, as principal Wayne Collins (Greg Kinnear) has a fiancée by the name of Jessica King (Katie Holmes). Annie soon inadvertently learns that Jessica is not exactly a faithful woman, and Jessica goes missing soon after a social gathering that everyone in the town, including Annie's sister, Linda (Kim Dickens) shows up for. Annie begins having visions of what happened to Jessica, but they come in brief flashes that don't make a lot of sense at first, until Jessica's dead body is found on Donnie's property. At first, everyone suspects Donnie of having killed Jessica, including Annie, but the only person who has any knowledge regarding how Jessica's body got where it is happens to be the murderer, with the local police failing to turn up any evidence other than Annie's visions. The big question, of course, is whether Annie can unravel the mystery and put the visions to rest in spite of the pressure from life as a widowed mother and from the ugly residents of the town.

    To be honest, this is not what I would call a great film, as it is slow, very dull at times, and it gets very difficult to gain even the slightest sense of sympathy for almost all of the characters. Katie Holmes being brought up from the bottom of a river made me laugh and clap, while Keanu Reeves as a wife-beating redneck simply made me want to swing a crowbar at him. Those of who you like to play Spot The Real Actor can have another go at it during this scene at 38:56. I found Kim Dickens hard to stomach in Hollow Man, and she is far less appealing as a nagging sister in the Bible Belt than she is as a veterinarian on a top-secret government project. However, as I have already mentioned, Giovanni Ribisi proves that he is an actor of fine calibre, and he absolutely steals the show by providing a character that an intelligent audience can sympathise with. All in all, I recommend The Gift for those who want something to accompany their copy of Stir Of Echoes whenever Fox Home Entertainment get around to releasing the sell-through disc.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    The transfer is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and it is 16x9 Enhanced.

    The transfer is very sharp, with the overall feature having the same balance between a modern photoplay and the look of a trip back into a very rustic society that I remember from the theatrical exhibition. The shadow detail is very good, but the dark scenes in this film were obviously shot with the intent of recreating the effect in rural environments where one can hardly see six feet in front of them at night. Considering that artistic choice, there is quite a lot of detail in the darker sections of the image, and this is helped by the fact that there is no low-level noise to spoil them.

    The colour palette in this film is mostly very dull and earthy, with browns and reds being emphasised while the greens in such things as trees look rather subdued by comparison. The transfer captures the artistic intentions where colours are concerned without missing a beat or displaying any composite artefacts.

    MPEG artefacts were not found in this transfer, and the compression is as transparent as you would expect from a Columbia Tristar disc. If only every home video distributor could make them look this good. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some mild to moderate aliasing that was only a little distracting because it appeared in some rather conspicuous areas, such as Greg Kinnear's striped shirt at 8:02, and again on a suit he wears at 25:42. The steel rims on such items as clocks and cars, particularly their windows and windscreens, were the most troublesome source of this artefact, almost always shimmering when they were in frame, but the severity in these instances was more tolerable. Film artefacts consisted of some unobtrusive black marks on the picture, usually during daylight scenes, but the interpositive this film was transferred from appears to have been remarkably clean.

    The English subtitles are about ninety percent faithful to the original dialogue, although they have no captions for any of the sound effects.

    This disc is RSDL formatted, with the layer change taking place between Chapters 23 and 24 at 77:24. Although this pause is noticeable, it does not disrupt the flow of the film.



Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Matching an excellent video transfer is an excellent audio transfer, another one that proves you don't need to have an action film or a special effects bonanza to create an immersive sound field.

    There are two soundtracks included on this disc, both of them in Dolby Digital 5.1 with the higher bitrate of 448 kilobits per second, which I really feel should be mandatory after the last few transfers of this variety I have heard. The first, and default, soundtrack is the original English dialogue, with a dub in Russian being offered for good measure. This is an interesting choice, especially combined with the fact that the disc is triple-coded for Regions 2, 4, and 5. I was tempted to compare parts of the film in Russian to the original English dialogue, but time constraints and stress prevented me from doing this.

    The dialogue is generally clear and easy to understand, but I found the Bible Belt accents to be annoying, and that they occasionally got in the way. This is a very subjective complaint, so it probably won't worry very many viewers to the same extent that this worried me. There were no subjective problems with audio sync.

    The music in this film is credited to Christopher Young, and while I found it augmented the horror sequences of this film, it wasn't especially remarkable. Some of the scenes in this film, such as the social ball, are accompanied by more contemporary-sounding music, at least in the sense of being as contemporary as rural America can get. This arrangement of music works in the film's favour, as it doesn't overwhelm the dialogue or the action as has so often happened with thrillers like this one before.

    The surround channels are frequently, but not always, used to create an immersive sound field that draws the viewer into a sort of fly-on-the-wall experience of the film. Sound effects such as rain, passing cars, forest wildlife, and music were all supported faithfully by the surround channels, giving the film a great sense of atmosphere that really suits a smaller, more intimate venue like the average home theatre. The scene when Cate Blanchett is supposed to be having a vision of someone swinging a torch at her head at 82:21 is my favourite example of the surround channel use in this soundtrack. It shows a great amount of range as well as a very immersive effect that gives the viewer a sense of really being there.

    The subwoofer was also used in a supportive, but noticeably more subtle manner to augment such scenes as that at 38:56. I'm sure that those who, like me, applauded when this scene was over will really enjoy the way it has been presented on this disc.



Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Menu

    The menu is thematically animated with the background showing some rather tantalising shots from the film, accompanied by Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. It is 16x9 Enhanced. The only complaint I have about the menu is that the highlight is a little too small, and tends to blend in too much with some backgrounds.

Featurette - The Making Of The Gift

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with footage from the film in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, this ten minute and forty-four second featurette is your basic garden-variety Entertainment Tonight sort of special. It is not 16x9 Enhanced.

Music Video - Niko Case: Furnace Room Lullaby

   This two-minute and fifty-three second music video is presented in the aspect ratio of approximately 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. It is actually quite pleasant to watch and listen to, and very appropriate for the overall theme of the film.

Theatrical Trailer

    This two minute and eleven second theatrical trailer is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and 16x9 Enhancement. It does a good job of selling the film and filling the viewer in on what it is about, without giving too much of the plot away.

Trailer - Go!

   This seventy-three second trailer is presented in the aspect ratio of roughly 1.78:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but it is not 16x9 Enhanced. There is no plot to give away here, so the content is alright except for the hilarious overestimation of how much impact the film would have upon theatrical release.

Trailer - Suspect

   This ninety-seven second trailer is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Filmographies - Cast & Crew

    Filmographies are presented under this submenu for Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, and director Sam Raimi.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

    I found it difficult to find any reviews of the Region 1 version of this disc. All other factors being equal, extras junkies will prefer the Region 4 disc. Those who need to have a French dub of this film will have to import the Region 1 version, but aside from these minor differences, the two versions are pretty equal.

Summary

    The Gift is one of Sam Raimi's better films, but it still doesn't compare to The Evil Dead or Darkman. It does, however, feature one of the finest displays of acting from someone whose full abilities I had never seen before, and Raimi even manages to coax believable performances out of the likes of Keanu Reeves and Katie Holmes.

    The video transfer is very good, spoiled only by some aliasing.

    The audio transfer is excellent.

    The extras are of average quantity, but some of them are quite interesting.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (Don't talk about my bio. We don't wanna know.)
Monday, October 01, 2001
Review Equipment
DVDToshiba 2109, using S-Video output
DisplaySamsung CS-823AMF (80cm). Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL).
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationSony STR DE-835
SpeakersYamaha NS-45 Front Speakers, Yamaha NS-90 Rear Speakers, Yamaha NSC-120 Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Active Subwoofer

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