5.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Charlie Rankin is out of prison but not out of danger. Indebted to the man who saved his life behind bars, Charlie must now carry out a murder to settle the score.Unexpectedly he meets Florence, a mysterious and beautiful lost soul who sees the good within Charlie's dark shell. When the hit goes bad, Charlie soon finds himself in over his head and must figure out how to settle his debts, discover his own identity, embrace a romance with Florence, and find the road to redemption.
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Michelle Monaghan, Willem Dafoe, Robert LaSardo, Tara BuckThriller | 100% |
Action | 41% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.36:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Tomorrow You're Gone (hereafter "TYG") is a classic example of a film that tries to sustain itself on atmosphere alone and fails miserably. Because director David Jacobson and screenwriter Matthew F. Jones are primarily interested in a dank sense of grim foreboding, they never bother to tell any kind of story, even a fractured and crazy one, as David Lynch might do. They just keep piling one vague hint on top of another, and early on you suspect (rightly so) that most of the murky events will never be adequately explained. A storyteller like Lynch leaves you with questions, but he also gives you spellbinding sequences that have internal coherence and hold your attention while they last (ask any fan of Mulholland Drive for their three favorite scenes). Jacobson and Jones always seems to be on the verge of an interesting sequence, just before they cut away to something else. Jacobson's last film was the disturbing Down in the Valley (2005), in which Edward Norton played a contemporary "urban cowboy" romancing a teenager from the San Fernando Valley half his age (played by Evan Rachel Wood) over the strenuous objections of her father. What started as an apparently harmless flirtation eventually turned dangerous, and Jacobson handled the modulation of tone effectively. But there he was telling a story objectively, set against a recognizable landscape with clear points of reference. In TYG, Jacobson tells the story from the subjective point of view of his protagonist, a recently released ex-con, who's withdrawn and uncommunicative—none of which makes the narrative easy to follow. Then, by suggesting early on that the ex-con has trouble distinguishing between illusion and reality, Jacobson really paints himself into a corner. It's all well and good to have an unreliable narrator, but first you need to establish some basic exposition and get your story underway.
Whatever the shortcomings of Tomorrow You're Gone as a film, the image on Image Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray provides little to find fault with. Photographed digitally with the Arri Alexa by Michael Fimognari (Beautiful Boy ), the image is clean, detailed and sharp but with the film-like texture for which the Alexa is justly renowned. Blacks are deep and solid, which is critical, because so much of the film is set in dim settings and darkened rooms. Colors tend to be muted and dull, because the world of TYG is not especially vital or alive, but Charlie does buy Florence a red sports car that contrasts nicely with the otherwise grim surroundings. (It's probably not an accident that red is also the color of blood.) Various visual distortions occur throughout the film, but these are intentional and designed to raise questions about the state of Charlie Rankin's mental health and his capacity to perceive the world accurately. The 92-minute film is contained on a BD-25 with a single soundtrack option and no real extras; at an average bitrate of just under 25 Mbps, compression issues were not in evidence.
The dynamic range and bass extension in the Blu-ray's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track become evident early on when Charlie first approaches Moe's Bar and Grille where the Buddha's name will get him a room. The distant throbbing from the bar's pounding sound system will put your system's subwoofer to work. The best surround showcases, however, are the subjective moments that reflect Charlie's state of mind, when present events merge with memories in an aural cocktail that swirls around Charlie, often leaving him dazed. The mix uses the full surround array to achieve this effect. The portentous score is by Peter Salett, who also composed the music for director Jacobon's Down in the Valley and has contributed songs to such films as Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It sounds fine for what it is.
Other than introductory trailers (in 1080p) for The Numbers Station and Day of the Falcon, the disc contains no extras. These trailers play at startup and can be skipped with the chapter forward button, but cannot be played once the disc loads.
I was a fan of Down in the Valley, but I can't recommend Jacobson's long-delayed follow-up, despite the Blu-ray's technical superiority. The story is too unfocused, the performances too detached, and the whole effort provides too little reward for the investment of your time in watching. Not recommended.
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