Inside Pulse DVD Review – 11:14

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(Credit: DVDTown.com)

Writer/Director:

Greg Marcks

Cast:

Henry Thomas……….Jack
Blake Heron……….Aaron
Barbara Hershey……….Norma
Clark Gregg……….Officer Hannagan
Hilary Swank……….Buzzy
Shawn Hatosy……….Duffy
Stark Sands………Tim
Colin Hanks……….Mark
Ben Foster……….Eddie
Patrick Swayze……….Frank
Rachel Leigh Cook…….Cheri

New Line Cinema presents in association with Media 8 Entertainment 11:14. Produced by Beau Flynn and John Morrissey. Running time: 85 minutes. Rated R (for violence, sexuality, and pervasive language).

The movie:

Strange events can happen when you least expect them to. You may get in a freak car accident spurred by a dead body being thrown off an overpass; or, you may find your pants down at an inopportune moment. Events like these two don’t happen everyday. But in the town of Middleton, they seem to be a common occurrence. Well, at least for one night.

11:14 begins with Jack (Henry Thomas) driving down a lonely stretch of road with one hand on the wheel and the other holding his cell phone. His drink of choice is resting beside him in the passenger’s seat. It appears that Jack is talking to his girlfriend woman on his phone. The discourse going on sounds like he’s looking to hook up with her for the night. When his clock radio switches from 11:13 to 11:14, an object hits his windshield. The movie is only a few minutes old and already we are hit with a problem that needs to be resolved. Quickly. Questions are also raised. Who is Jack, and whose body hit his car? But more importantly, what’s going to happen next?

A chain of events is what follows. Jack thinks he has committed a felony, and soon finds out that the object he hit is missing most of his head. Things go from bad to worse when Norma (Barbara Hershey), a concerned driver, comes to his aid. She figures a deer was crossing the road, and this unknown man hit it with his car. Jack is able to quell the situation without Norma discovering the corpse. Once she’s gone he wraps the body up in a bed sheet, and stashes it in the trunk of his car. Thinking he’s in the clear, Jack returns to the driver’s seat and gets ready to continue down the lonely road. And wouldn’t you know it, a cop (Clark Gregg) pulls up behind him. Without spoiling this story any further, I will say it’s best to avoid running in graveyards at night.


“Stand back miss. I know what I’m doing.”

When one story ends there are five photograph-like shots in rapid succession used to set up the next situation. It’s almost as if first-time writer-director Greg Marcks uses this technique to establish a timeline of events. Each story that follows is a different kind of perversion. The second tale has three teenagers spending the evening lighting romance novels on fire and throwing them from their speeding van. But when the van accidentally strikes a pedestrian, it causes one of the passengers to have an unfortunate accident to his “private” part.

The synopsis on the back of the DVD compares it to Crash and Memento. That’s a good analogy but I liken the film to Doug Liman’s Go. Both have intersecting stories and a dark sense of humor. 11:14 is a sick, twisted movie where five situations and several characters interconnect with one another. The one characteristic each misadventure shares is that they all culminate at 11:14 p.m.

And that’s the movie’s concept in a nutshell. Pretty intriguing premise. Instead of having a well-defined protagonist who interacts with others and deals with specific problems before reaching the last reel of film, here we have a mixed bag of characters and situations told in 15-minute intervals. The trouble with this is that it creates a storytelling problem, interrupting the movie’s tone in the process. We get little to no exposition for the characters. Cheri (Rachel Leigh Cook) is an exception, as we learn more about her situation; she’s pregnant and she wants her boyfriend Duffy (Shawn Hatosy) to come up with the money for the abortion. So Duffy decides to rob a convenience store. A store where his good friend Buzzy (Hilary Swank) is about to close up shop.


I win an Oscar and this is the thanks I get.

Despite peeling back the layers to show us how everything is intertwined, which can get tedious, 11:14‘s best strengths are in Marcks’ directing and the ensemble cast. A film that has Hilary Swank as a brace face working the dead-end job of a store clerk, Patrick Swayze, a former dirty dancer now out-of-shape couch potato father, and Rachel Leigh Cook dropping her She’s All That act in favor of becoming the town harlot just scratches the surface of the ensemble. Young actors like Shawn Hatosy, Colin Hanks and Ben Foster also share in the misfortunes. As for the directing, it is evident that Greg Marcks has a penchant for Coen Brothers’ films and low rent horror. That’s why you’ll see characters in this Podunk town driving Trans-Ams and automobiles with trunks that can’t quite store a dead body. Strange combination it may be, but together with his B-movie visuals and dark sense of humor, Marcks’ first feature is full of morbid curiosity.

Score: 6.5/10

The DVD:

VIDEO: How does it look?
(Presented in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)

11:14 had a shooting schedule of 26 straight nights, so lighting played a crucial role on how scenes looked. For a low-budget feature, the video quality is remarkably good. There are moments where grain is apparent, especially in the darker scenes. There is also some pixilation in spots, but it is a minor inconvenience. Playing with the hues cinematographer Shane Hurlbut saturates the film’s composition in a blue or orange glow.

Score: 7/10

AUDIO: How does it sound?
(English Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS)

The DTS soundtrack comes out loud and clear in the front and rear speakers. The dialogue is crisp as are the ambient noise and sound effects. The only problem is that music is not constant. Sometimes the songs or Clint Mansell’s (Requiem for a Dream) score can be overpowering. Not too much to disrupt the action or discourse, though.

Score: 8/10

SPECIAL FEATURES: Filmmaker commentary, deleted scenes and a short making-of.

The extras on the DVD include four deleted scenes with the option to view with or without commentary from the director. Running a little over five minutes combined, the scenes are merely filler material. The only one that changes the story is “Cop Helps Frank”. It alters a scene in the final cut. Instead of Frank (Patrick Swayze) throwing a rock into his daughter’s locked car, that same Middleton police officer from the start of the movie drives by and offers assistance.


You may remember me from such classics as Black Dog and Next of Kin.

Greg Marcks’ director’s commentary is pretty standard stuff as he does not go into exhaustive detail about the making-of the film. He has good stories, all the same, like how the Buzzy role that Hilary Swank played was originally intended for a man. He also admits that Patrick Swayze is wearing a fat suit so his character Frank can be the ultimate coach potato father. And there’s some lighting and shot selection anecdotes thrown in for those aspiring filmmakers.

The making-of featurette “46 Minutes to Midnight” (9:45) is more standard fare. Some of the cast and crew appear as talking heads giving small sound bites about their characters and what it was like to work on this independent feature. After hearing Greg Marcks’ commentary track and finally seeing what he looks like during the featurette, you might think he’s fresh out of film school. He admits the shooting schedules were crazy and hectic, like when Colin Hanks had to drive 12 hours a day for two straight days. And not only drive and be alert, but act in the scene as well. I’m sure his dad was proud.

One unique extra is the character jump option. What it does is allow you to select a new character to follow whenever two characters interact. By selecting the option when it appears on screen you may jump between simultaneous storylines to view what a different character is doing at that same point in time. Sound confusing? Well, watch the movie once, then go back and play it over again. During the first scene you can flash forward to see who pushed the body off the overpass.

The only other features on the disc are a Storyboard to screen option that allows you to watch two scenes and compare the storyboards to the final edit, and trailers for 11:14 and Havoc.

Score: 3.5/10

Travis Leamons is one of the Inside Pulse Originals and currently holds the position of Managing Editor at Inside Pulse Movies. He's told that the position is his until he's dead or if "The Boss" can find somebody better. I expect the best and I give the best. Here's the beer. Here's the entertainment. Now have fun. That's an order!