6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Luke Chisolm is a talented young golfer set on making the pro tour. When his first big shot turns out to be a very public disaster, Luke escapes the pressures of the game and finds himself unexpectedly stranded in Utopia, Texas, home to eccentric rancher Johnny Crawford. But Johnny's more than meets the eye, and his profound ways of looking at life force Luke to question his past choices.
Starring: Lucas Black, Robert Duvall, Melissa Leo, Deborah Ann Woll, Kathy BakerSport | 100% |
Drama | 57% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It is entirely possible to enjoy watching Seven Days in Utopia without sharing the strong Christian faith that is one of its three essential elements, or even agreeing with the self-help philosophy that is a second. The third element is golf, and the participation of numerous pro golfers, plus the fact that star Lucas Black is an avid golfer and the golfing scenes are set in gorgeous surroundings, suggests that duffers of all persuasions should be able to enjoy the film for its depiction of a sport that is well-known for both frustrations and rewards. I'm not qualified to judge the authenticity of the golf scenes, but I take it on faith, if you'll pardon the expression, that they're accurate. If golf isn't enough, there's always the pleasure of the irreplaceable Robert Duvall giving a deceptively simple performance as Johnny Crawford, a retired golfer in his twilight years, filled with wisdom and regret, who sees something of his younger self in Black's Luke Chisholm and has the chance to tell Luke what he wishes he'd learned sooner. Duvall won his Oscar for playing a worn-out country singer surveying his life's mistakes in Tender Mercies (1997); he was nominated again for his searing performance as a born-again minister struggling with God in The Apostle (1997), which he also directed. Add westerns like Lonesome Dove and Open Range, and the various colors of Johnny Crawford come as easily to Duvall as sitting in the saddle. The novel on which the film was based was more overtly didactic and purposeful, in large part because the author, David L. Cook, is a sports psychologist and a man on a mission. As readers' comments at Amazon suggest, Cook's overt agenda limited his audience as an author to those who already share his beliefs. Cook was an executive producer of the film and a co-author of the script, but director Matt Russell, who shares writing credit (along with Sandra Thrift), cut his cinematic teeth in the world of visual effects. Russell understands the importance of the storytelling commandment to "show, don't tell". In Russell's hands, Seven Days in Utopia remains a G-rated "message" movie, but it proceeds in a skillfully constructed manner that allows even viewers who don't necessarily share the beliefs that inspired it to enjoy this family- friendly tale.
Seven Days in Utopia was shot by M. David Mullen, the favorite cinematographer of the Polish Brothers (Twin Falls Idaho and Northfork), as well as the creator of the various styles behind NBC's new series Smash and HBO's The United States of Tara. Mullen's work for Utopia is so gorgeously sharp and detailed that you'd almost swear he used digital cameras, but the credits make clear that this was a production on film (3-perf Super 35, according to IMDb), finished on a digital intermediate. Director Russell clearly hired Mullen to make Utopia (both the town and the film) as beautiful as possible, and Mullen obliged. The image on ARC Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray lovingly reproduces the golds, greens and browns of the Texas landscape in all their glory. Rarely have scrub brush and pasture land looked so inviting. Detail and depth of field are remarkable, whether looking at golf courses or distant landscapes or studying the lifetime of memorabilia accumulated in Johnny's office. In night sequences, when the golden sunlight is absent, the black levels show appropriate gradations of darkness without crushing. Grain is barely detectable, which seems to be more and more the norm on projects completed on a digital intermediate. Certainly there are no signs of high frequency filtering, and no artificial sharpening has been applied to create the impression of additional detail. No compression artifacts were observed.
The most noticeable effect on the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is a deep bass rumbling that is pervasive during the film's first 15 minutes (Luke Chisholm's most troubled time) and doesn't seem especially attached to any particular effect or music cue. Maybe it's intended to convey the turmoil in Luke's troubled spirit, but it's certainly unsettling. As for the rest, the track contains a few standard-issue surround effects involving vehicles passing and ambient environmental noises, as well as clear dialogue and an effective score by Klaus Badelt (the first Pirates of the Caribbean) and Christopher Carmichael.
When a film arrives with a prominent endorsement from Focus on the Family, there's a natural tendency to assume its appeal will be limited to an evangelical audience. Some such assumption seems to have infected the critical response when Seven Days in Utopia was in theaters. A "Christian propaganda fantasy movie" went one pithy dismissal quoted at Rotten Tomatoes, though the degree to which religion, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder is revealed by the critic who saw the film's version of golf as a metaphor for, of all things, Buddhism (and not without justification). But unless you have an agenda—and it's hard to take a step in any direction without tripping over one these days—Seven Days in Utopia isn't out to convert anyone. Working within G-rated limits, director Russell crafted a tale about specific people in a particular time and place. Their faith is part of who they are, and one can enjoy their story without sharing that faith, just as one can enjoy it without being a golfer like Luke and Johnny, running a café like Lily or a hotel like Mabel, or studying animal husbandry like Sarah. Recommended for duffers, Duvall fans and general family viewing.
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