Tortured (2007/Sony DVD)

 

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

 

 

When I saw that Cole Houser, James Cromwell and Laurence Fishburne had made a thriller together and hardly anyone had heard about it, I was puzzled.  For all the dumb garbage being made and shoved into cineplexes, you’d think this would have been better-received.  But Nolan H. Lebovitz’s Tortured (2007) may have seemed to close to the thankfully declining (but unfortunately not dead) “torture porn” cycle to be bothered.  However, the film is well acted, has some good moments and had potential.  Too bad it does not add up.

 

Hauser is a double agent for the government working with a deadly organized crime racket he is trying to infiltrate, but has to go to extreme measures to get to the mastermind.  This includes beating and torturing a man (Fishburne) for information for a mysterious leader named Ziggy.  Fortunately, he is not animated and does not own a dog.

 

The torture is graphic, which is a problem after a while, because when we discover the final points of the whole venture, its believability pops like a big balloon.  Too bad, because there are some good performances, ideas and even chemistry in the cast, but the film gets away from itself and it does not work.  Not that it trips up on too many twists at the end like so many bad thrillers over the last decade-plus, but it does want to be a Usual Suspects variant (all the way to casting Kevin Pollack) and in that, it falls short.  However, despite a dumb final scene, Tortured is still worth a look.

 

The 1.85 x 1 image has some Video Black issues in the dark scenes almost to the detriment of the entire transfer, but the brighter scenes make up for some of that with color consistency, some depth and clarity.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not bad but the soundfield is lacking for such a thriller.  Extras include trailers for other Sony DVD releases and a making of featurette that runs just over 15 minutes.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo