Dark Streets (2008/Sony DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: B- Extras: C Film: C
Based on
a stage play, Rachel Samuels’ Dark
Streets (2008) is an uneasy mix of time periods, styles, faux Film Noir
(i.e., they don’t get it) and Backstage Musical moments in this post-modern mix
of music and murder that wants to be otherworldly and smart, but falls
short. Of course, old style gangsters
are at work, but too many elements pull this all over the place and in the end,
it falls on cliché and predictability when it could have been more.
Besides
feeling stagebound too often (which is not
the same as claustrophobic), it starts off with some promise as a nightclub
owner (Gabriel Mann) does what he can to hold onto his club, lifestyle,
happiness and a (maybe the) center of culture in a surreal version of the 1930s
that tries to be more like Dark City
than the period in question. Bijou
Philips is good as the star singer looking as beautiful as she ever has and the
rest of the cast is not bad, but this is just too disjoined to work and the
licensed songs are all over the place.
Some are not recordings from the 1930s.
Odder
still is a tough African American character who narrates and does not seem to
always be part of the narrative. At best
he is a strong character, tough and likely willing to get physical as he does,
but at worse he does not fit into the time period (his look is more 1970s) and
the detached moments are like a racist device in a bad 1980s TV show or film
where he is there to deflect racist accusations while the narrative is mostly
about white persons.
Izabella
Miko, Elias Koteas and Toledo Diamond are among the supporting cast in what in
the end feels like a bad Soul/Blues version of Streets Of Fire, but it is too short at 84 minutes and with more
time to develop a storyline and add different variants, this could have
possibly worked. As it stands, it is a
very mixed bag, but they were at least ambitious. Too bad their 1930s felt more like Russell
Mulcahy’s The Shadow, which was fine
for that film but not this one.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is much softer than expected, with Video Black issues,
shadow detail problems, detail issues and more.
I have no Blu-ray or theatrical screening to compare, but despite the
money on the screen, it can be a trying viewing. Color and styles are a plus, but could this
be what Director of Photography Sharone Meir intended? The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not bad, with
lively surrounds and a good sound design one would expect for a music
film. Extras include deleted/alternate
scenes and director/cast audio commentary.
- Nicholas Sheffo
