Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie Review

Remind Me; Who's Jennifer?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 9, 2013

My wife and I saw Jennifer 8 when it was released in 1992, but as we sat down to watch Warner's new Blu-ray of this catalog title, neither of us could remember anything about it. Two hours later, we realized why. The first foray into Hollywood filmmaking by writer/director Bruce Robinson (Withnail & I), Jennifer 8 is very possibly the most inept attempt at a thriller ever to sink such legitimate talents as Andy Garcia, Uma Thurman, Lance Henriksen and, behind the camera, cinematographer Conrad Hall (Conrad Hall!) and editor Conrad Buff (Terminator 2, True Lies and Titanic). If not for the presence of these professionals valiantly struggling to make something out of Robinson's lumbering script, Jennifer 8 would be the first film I have reviewed here to receive zero stars.

The architect of this travesty was producer Scott Rudin, who has generally shown excellent taste in choosing both people and projects. Recent examples include The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Robinson had established a cult following with his two low-budget projects for former Beatle George Harrison's defunct production company, HandMade Films: Withnail and I (1987) and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989). Rudin was no doubt hoping to shepherd a distinctive voice through the perils of the Hollywood machine; so Robinson sat down to write a "traditional" mainstream thriller that he could direct to establish his credibility.

There was just one problem: Robinson had no aptitude for the mainstream and no clue how to structure a thriller. Somehow, though, Rudin and producer Gary Lucchesi persuaded Paramount to greenlight the film, and they assembled the kind of cast and crew with which any semi-competent writer/director should be able to turn out something watchable. But not Robinson. Jennifer 8 bombed in theaters, and Robinson returned to England, vowing never to direct again (a promise he broke in 2011 with The Rum Diary).

Garcia plays Sgt. John Berlin, a forensics expert with the LAPD, who has suffered a personal and professional burnout after the collapse of his marriage. At the invitation of his former mentor, Freddy Ross (Henriksen), Berlin moves to the rural town of Eureka in Northern California, where he joins Ross on the local force under the command of Chief Citrine (Kevin Conway). Ross's wife, Margie (Kathy Baker), is delighted to have their old family friend back in their life, but other officers on the Eureka force aren't as welcoming, especially Sgt. J.K. Taylor (Graham Beckel), who lost a promotion so that the Chief could make room for Berlin.

Old habits die hard, and even before he officially starts work, Berlin is listening to a police scanner and shows up at a refuse dump where Ross and other officers have responded to the report of a body, which turns out to be an elderly suicide. But then they find something else: a severed hand. It reawakens dark memories for the Eureka cops.

The town's most notorious "cold case" is that of a woman's corpse found without her head and hands. After months of intensive investigation, she was never identified and her killer was never found. For purposes of the file, she was known simply as "Jennifer".

The hand from the dump cannot be identified by fingerprints, although it is determined to be a woman's hand. In a moment of inspiration, Berlin concludes that it came from a blind person. Then he makes another intuitive leap that "Jennifer" was also blind. Finally, he contacts his former colleagues in L.A. for recent cases of missing blind women, and they come back with six. Berlin is now certain that he has identified a serial killer whose eighth victim has just been discovered (hence, the film's title).

How does Berlin link all these cases? Here we have a fine example of Jennifer 8's essential failing. Effective thrillers depend on the clear conveyance of the right information at the right time. The script has to be well planned, and the director has to have a strong visual sense and a good instinct for pacing. Robinson lacks all of the above. Having spent the first twenty minutes of the film establishing Berlin's credentials as a forensics expert who uses microscopes, computers and fingerprint analysis, he then has Berlin build an entire case on hunches and guesswork that leaves everyone unconvinced, even his old pal Ross. Berlin's new chief keeps asking for evidence—any evidence—to support his new cop's theory connecting these disappearances of blind women, or even connecting the severed hand to the old "Jennifer" case. Berlin doesn't have any, but he's sure he's right, because, you know, there's that intuition thing.

Berlin's instinctive methodology leads him to Helena Robertson (Thurman), a music teacher at the Shasta-Trinity Institute for the blind. A student at the Institute, Amber, left for vacation and never returned. Aha! thinks Berlin; he's found Jennifer 8, and he begins pressing the sightless Helena for every detail she can recall about the day of Amber's departure, including the voice of the man who picked her up and the sound of the car in which she drove away. In vain does the Institute's head, Goodridge (Bob Gunton), point out that students leave all the time and don't return, and that no one has reported Amber missing.

(For those who may have lost the thread, Berlin believes that Amber is "Jennifer 8". Some viewers, including the poster of a detailed plot summary at IMDb, are already so confused by this point in the story that they think Helena is "Jennifer 8", which is understandable, since Uma Thurman is the female lead.)

Of course, Berlin has put Helena in the killer's sights by involving her in the investigation, assuming, of course, there is a killer, which only he believes. Soon enough, Helena seems to have some sort of stalker, although many on the Eurkea force believe it to be Berlin, perhaps to lend his theory credibility. Certainly Berlin's professionalism is questionable, as he begins a passionate affair with Helena, who at this point is his sole witness to a crime that only he believes was committed.

Robinson's parsing of essential information is so inept that, by the time Berlin does acquire a genuine lead, you find yourself staring at the screen trying to remember how he got it. The director's visual sense is so clumsy that a lengthy interrogation scene between Berlin and an intimidating FBI special investigator played by the usually reliable John Malkovich quickly goes limp. And what should be a dramatic reveal in the film's climactic sequence is more startling than confusing, because Robinson hasn't supplied his editor with the shots necessary to "sell" the effect. Not that anyone cares. By that point, you're just glad the whole sorry affair is over.

Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Having recently sung the praises of cinematography legend Conrad Hall in my review of Marathon Man, I will simply add that everyone has clunkers on their résumé, and Jennifer 8 is one of Hall's. Still, Hall performed with his usual professionalism, especially when lighting the many night scenes, rainy days and dark interiors where much of Jennifer 8 plays out.

Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, from a transfer by Paramount, will almost certainly be a disappointment to those Blu-ray afficionados whose knee-jerk reaction to a certain kind of softness in the image is to assume that the transfer is faulty. Hall was a pioneer in the deliberate creation of photographic effects that had previously been deemed "mistakes", including lens flares, overexposing the film by aiming the camera directly into bright lights and sacrificing detail for the sake of mood. His style is evident throughout Jennifer 8, even if it's not enough to patch all the holes in Robinson's leaky script.

For the most part, the blacks are deeply black, although they sometimes shade to gray in a scene where Hall deliberately allows an excess of brightness from a light source. The color palette is muted and washed out, in part because the film is set in Northern California during the rainy season (a point specifically noted in dialogue) and in part because blindness is a theme, both literally and metaphorically. A notable exception occurs at a Christmas Eve celebration, where bright colors blaze forth, especially a red sequined dress worn by Uma Thurman's Helena (the screencap doesn't do justice to its sparkles). Not surprisingly for a thriller, this burst of saturated color and good feeling is the prelude to danger.

Despite the frequent softness of the image, there is abundant detail, even in shadows of the many dark interiors. The average bitrate of 25.95 Mbps is on the high side for a movie without major action sequences, but it is appropriate for a film with a visible grain structure that has been well preserved and, except for a hint of sharpening in one or two shots, undisburbed by digital tampering. Jennifer 8 doesn't look like a contemporary film, but it looks like it should.

Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jennifer 8 was released in Dolby Stereo Surround and was remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 for its 2000 DVD release. The 5.1 mix is presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1. It's an atmospheric track with a surround presence that conveys a general sense of ambiance, particularly during scenes involving rain, wind or snowstorms. Odd sounds in the ramshackle house where John Berlin takes up residence, and the sounds of water dripping when Helena takes a bath, not realizing that an intruder is present, give off slight echoes around the listening room. The dialogue is intelligible (if not clear in its exposition), and the soundtrack by Christopher Young (Hellraiser, Drag Me to Hell) provides a sense of urgency that the plot itself cannot match.

Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with Paramount's 2000 DVD, the Blu-ray has no extras other than a trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:24).

Jennifer 8 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

People sometimes ask me whether it's fun to write a bad review, and they're often startled when I say no. I'd much rather praise a movie than bury it. A film like Jennifer 8 makes you sorry for all the wasted money and talent. Spare yourself.