Bitter Feast (2010/Dark Sky/MPI DVD)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Feature: C+
When I
saw that a new thriller called Bitter Feast
was on the way involving food and murder, the bottom of the barrel expectation
would be a torture porn hack job with cannibalism all over the place. Instead, Joe Maggio’s tale is a little
smarter than that and even has interesting aspects that are sadly not realized.
Popular
TV food chef Peter Gray (James LeGros, pronounced le-grow, of Fincher’s Zodiac, Vantage Point, Phantasm II
and Point Break) is not as popular
as he could be, but just takes himself too seriously and his personal issues
(including events from his past still haunting him) are taking their toll. He is definitely a talented chef and has great
ideas about cooking, but his personal misery is slowly eating him up. But what really gets his goat is a terribly
negative review by the terribly negative online critic J.T. Franks (the Blair Witch Project actor Joshua
Leonard showing some growth as an actor here and on TV hits Hung and United States Of Tara) with his own issues that sends Gray over the
edge as he looses his TV show, restaurant and snaps.
He
decides to kidnap, taunt and get even with Franks in a situation that is bad at
first, then starts to get heated up.
What could have been a clichéd bit is more like watching a knock-off of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? with a
touch of Kubrick’s The Shining, but
cannot find a way to extrapolate on those classics or come up with anything
new, so the final act unravels anything that works here and then, Maggio and
company cannot figure out how to end it.
That’s a
shame, because the actors are interesting and give good performances, but they
cannot overcome the script limits. In
addition, the suspense is uneven and some opportunities for humor (not the
torture porn kind) are missed. I am
surprised I liked this as much as I did early on, but this is still more
energetic, ambitious and even intense than most works in the genre of late,
which is why its lame conclusion disappoints.
Another
problem is that the characters are not developed enough and no one is likable,
but the two leads would have been more compelling if they has been developed
more. Years ago, I got to see a thriller
called Virgil Bliss, a 2001 thriller
Maggio made on low def tape. Like this
feature, Maggio wants to explore damaged masculinity under pressure, but cannot
find a way to go all the way, holding back.
If he could just come up with a breakthrough script and try shooting on
film next time, the result might just be a minor classic. Bitter Feast is still worth
a look for those seriously interested.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 image was shot in HD video and to the credit of
the makers, it does not always look too bad and the night shots do not always
look like the evening news, but it is still soft throughout, though a Blu-ray
could look better in some shots. The
Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is spreading out what is a simple stereo soundtrack and
the lack of audio fidelity including that of the score makes the mix awkward,
so you cannot tell sometimes the difference between the music and sound
effects, which is also an issue with the actual compositions.
Extras
include a teaser, trailer, stills section, Deleted/Alternate Scenes including a
more problematic ending that is worse than what we get, a brief interview with
the great chef Mario Batali, a making of featurette and feature-length audio
commentary.
For more
on Virgil Bliss, visit this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/725/Virgil+Bliss
- Nicholas Sheffo
