Inside Pulse DVD Review – London

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DVD available at Amazon.com

Writer-director:

Hunter Richards

Cast:

Chris Evans……….Syd
Jason Statham……….Bateman
Jessica Biel……….London
Isla Fisher……….Becca
Joy Bryant……….Mallory
Kelli Garner……….Maya
John Newton………Josh

Destination Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films present London. Running time: 92 minutes. Rated R (for strong sexual content, pervasive language and drug use, and some violence). Available on DVD: May 23, 2006.

The movie:

Accidentally spilling a stash of cocaine on a bathroom’s marbled floor, you are left with a dilemma. Do you cut your losses and clean it up with a towel, or do you get on your hands and knees and try to snort it up? If the addiction is strong, and you won’t be satisfied until all the white powder is gone, then by all means help yourself.

This is but one exploit in London. As Syd (Chris Evans) and Bateman (Jason Statham) hang out in the upstairs bathroom of a loft apartment in Manhattan – a party is going on downstairs – they take turns snorting lines off of a framed replica of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Crows”. Mixing in a little drinking and cigarette smoke the two discuss a wide range of topics, including S&M and the existence of God.

Characters go off on tangents, snort, drink, and then talk some more. The cycle is always repeating. During their so-called intellectual conversations a pair of partygoers shows up in the bathroom every so often. One is a pubescent girl who tells them about an article on baby bunnies she read. They are taken from their mother. With the mother hooked up to EKG machines and other devices, every time one is killed her vitals show a sudden spike. She told this story in relation to questioning His presence, yet this digression has no relevance in this exchange. Why the dialogue is in the scene, again I’m not quite sure.

Before tonight Syd and Bateman were strangers. Bateman is an unsuspecting drug dealer, since he is a banker professionally. Syd likes to do drugs. They complete each other. Syd met the Brit in a bar and urged him to accompany him to the party. He needed someone for moral support because it was a going-away party for his ex-girlfriend, London (Jessica Biel). Since Syd wasn’t formally invited, Bateman’s presence could be warranted.

A few minutes getting to know the characters I began to drift off and contemplate what they do when drugs aren’t an arm’s length away. Bateman is obvious, but the rest just seem to be in the scenery not doing much of anything.

Syd is a mess of a man. It’s been six months since he and London broke up. Everyday his pain is exacerbated by her not being in his life. So, he resorts to snorting coke and chasing it with swigs of Tequila to keep him together. The day he learns of the going-away part, Syd wakes up, lights up a bong, and pops some pills, drinking them down with a flat beer. His phone rings and he learns about the party for London tonight. Well, this causes Syd to trash his already dilapidated apartment, breaking his TV and shattering an aquarium. More importantly, he uses the f-word, the first of several hundred utterances throughout the movie.

Through flashbacks, we see the life Syd wants us to believe. Whether he is shopping with London or lying next to her in bed, the scenes end with him throwing tantrums, simple macho posturing. (You mean to tell me there were no moments of serenity in his relationship.) His behavior then, being belligerent and self-absorbed, is no different than his feelings now. How he seems to overanalyze the most trivial of events probably stems from his obsession with the meaning of life. This forces him to act brash, and push those close, away. Given some explanation of his past, maybe then we can understand Syd’s plight; since his despondency is not only about his jilted ex.

With the setup, writer-director Hunter Richards wanted to examine the psychological scarring of a relationship. Such introspection would be interesting if the dialogue didn’t sound so insipid. Nobody in the real world talks like that. Richards is well aware of his characters’ insecurities, especially since he named one of them Bateman. Some will remember Bateman as the last name of the stockbroker-serial killer from American Psycho. The fact that both Batemans are driven by some of male’s most innermost compulsions, sex and decadence, can’t be coincidence.

London is like a one-act play that wears thin very quickly. The monologues about impotence, the size of male genitalia, and S&M, borderline on tastelessness. Tangents are hollow and seldom insightful. The audience needs to see that the relationship between Syd and London was something worth saving. Sex is shown, but is it love? Instead of tantrums, we need to see flaws. Syd is so wrapped up in self-pity he can’t remember why he loved her in the first place.

When Syd musters up the courage to patch things up with London, the movie disavows all those previous observations and veers into territory that goes against the pretentious story. Then again, it wasn’t very practical to begin with.

Score: 2.5/10

The DVD:

THE VIDEO
(Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen)

Despite the monotony on screen, the visuals and production values are worth noting. Shot mostly in a luxurious marble bathroom, director of photography Jo Willems was able to successfully shoot a mirrored wall without the camera appearing in the reflection. Occasionally, the rack focus will be disturbed, alternating between the mirrored reflection and the focused shot. The rest of the picture is free of grain or noise. Rich image and clean transfer help to enhance the impressive cinematography.

Score: 8/10

THE AUDIO
(English Dolby Digital 5.1, French 2.0)

Even with a 5.1 sound track, some of the voices are softer than others. Still, the audio is great at highlighting the musical score by The Crystal Method. But the crisp sound also means a few hundred F-words are too easy to listen to. I guess it would have been too much to ask for Hunter Richards to refrain on the expletives in his loquacious monologues.

Score: 8/10

SPECIAL FEATURES: Drinking wine and eating chips…

Hunter Richards is uninspired in his commentary track. Along with his co-producer Ross Weinberg, Richards drinks wine, smokes cigarettes, and eats potato chips while talking about London. Recorded in a Montreal studio at two in the morning, the track is not revealing. Unless, you count his attempts at humor. Note to Richards, making jokes about the possibility of an animal dying on the set is not funny. Oh, and admitting that Chris Evans and Jason Statham’s characters wore wigs is not very enlightening.

There is a nine-minute behind-the-scenes featurette about the making of the movie. It is strung together by a series of montages interspersed with awkwardly shot sound bites. Chris Evans and Jessica Biel are the most vocal, talking about their characters and experiences on the production. Missing from this piece is Jason Statham, who, truth be told, gave the best performance in this drug-laced melodrama.

The four deleted scenes add little to London. Strangely, the first scene involves two characters that don’t even appear in the final cut. They talk long-windedly in a bar for roughly four minutes. There is no optional commentary track, so we are left to wonder why the scene was shot in the first place. Another scene has Syd and London arguing in a restaurant. What a surprise.

Last, and certainly least are previews for the following Sony Pictures DVD titles: Underworld: Evolution, When a Stranger Calls, The Squid & the Whale, The Tenants, Where the Truth Lies, National Lampoon Presents Barely Legal, Pretty Persuasion, The Baxter, 8mm 2, Lila Says and Sex and the Teenage Mind.

Score: 4/10

InsidePulse’s Ratings for London
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

2.5
THE VIDEO

8
THE AUDIO

8
THE EXTRAS

4
REPLAY VALUE

1
OVERALL
2
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

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!