Things We Lost In The Fire (2007/Paramount DVD Set)

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: C     Film: C+

 

 

Despite great performances by Benicio Del Toro, Halle Berry and David Duchovny, Susanne Bier’s Things We Lost In The Fire (2007) cannot avoid rising above its melodramatic core, no matter how ambitious the material may be.  The male leads play best friends, with Berry as Duchovny’s wife, but when he tries to stop a wife beating, he is slain and no one’s life will be the same again.  That includes best friend Del Toro, who was saved from drug addiction by the same good guy whose good deeds got him eventually killed.

 

Nevertheless, it is worth seeing for the actors and some authentic moments, but the film itself cannot escape convention with Allan Loeb’s screenplay.  Still, it is ambitious, heart felt and worth a look.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is visually pleasant and though detail and depth can be weak, the better moments of performance just edge out the problematic ones.  Too bad there is too much shaky camera work.  This was issued on HD-DVD, but Paramount is not sending any press copies, so we’ll wait to see how much better the Blu-ray looks when it is finally announced.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a bit better than the Dolby 2.0 Stereo, but is dialogue based.  Extras include a featurette discussion about the film, seven deleted scenes, trailers for this and other Paramount releases.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo