***½/**** Image B Sound B Extras B
starring Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi
screenplay by Scott Frank
directed by Kenneth Branagh
by Jarrod Chambers A convicted murderer on death row, about to be executed. A stolen pair of scissors, he lunges–a woman wakes up screaming. It was all a dream, or was it? The door opens, a flash of lightning, illuminating a silver cross dangling from the neck of an attendant nun.
Dead Again is pure melodrama, from the first violent chord to the final, satisfying scene. It works on the viewer's guts, with plenty of logic and plot to keep the brain happy. In the hands of a lesser director and the usual Hollywood suspects, this could have been just another tricky slasher film. But with Kenneth Branagh at the helm, and some of the finest British and American actors around to back him up, this is a wonderful little gem that you can watch over and over again, and it will hook you every time.
The plot is simple. An amnesiac woman turns up on the doorstep of an orphanage, having strange dreams about a murder committed fifty years before. The obligatory private detective is called in to find out who she is; she ends up staying at his apartment, where they are visited by an antiques dealer (Derek Jacobi) who also happens to be a hypnotist. He quickly puts her under, and we find out that not only is she dreaming about the past–she was there, in a previous life. From there, it's twists and turns galore, a rollercoaster ride all the way to the final shootout.
The script for this movie, by Scott Frank, is up to his usual high standards. (He is responsible for adapting Elmore Leonard's book Get Shorty, another of my favourite movies; Leonard had written it as revenge for the screwing over Hollywood had given him, and ended up loving the film!) Frank has put a lot of care into making everything hang together, so much so that after four or five viewings I am still picking out subtle bits of foreshadowing I missed before. Some of these I am sure were Branagh's idea as director, only because they are disguised as the bits of business that other directors throw in to make sure actors have something to do with their hands.
The performances are superb, larger than life as they should be in a melodrama, but never over the top. Robin Williams has a great cameo as a disgraced psychiatrist, while Campbell Scott is in there for a few minutes as well. Bravo to Branagh for spotting a gifted character actor like Scott so early on. (See Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner to get an idea of what I mean.) Former couple Branagh himself and Emma Thompson are the soul of the movie, playing the private investigator and the amnesiac woman in the present and the convicted murderer and his victim in the past. The past scenes are all shot in beautiful black-and-white, in a daring but effective contrast to the rest of the film.
Add to all this brilliant music (by Patrick Doyle), highlighting moments of tension without telegraphing any; a pervasive sense of menace waiting just offstage, like that in The Sixth Sense; and a host of recurring images–smoking, scissors, driving rain–and you have a near-perfect thriller in both design and execution. Other movies may teach you more about life, love, and the human condition, but few will be more fun. So grab a pillow, scooch up to the edge of your seat, and enjoy.
THE DVD
by Bill Chambers Dead Again and Hamlet are the two Branagh pictures I have most eagerly awaited to hit DVD since purchasing a player. (For the time being, the latter still languishes in Warner hell.) Dead Again is serviceably rendered on the digital medium. As nice as the 1.85:1, 16×9-enhanced version of this 1991 film is, I can't call it above average in light of some of Paramount's truly smashing remasters (Apocalypse Now, The Parallax View). Muddy hues cheapen the film's design, and the print used for this transfer was not in pristine condition. Contrast is good in the black-and-white scenes, though, which were actually shot in colour but desaturated during the preview phase to smooth the transitions to flashback.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 remix is only a mild improvement over the Pro-Logic recording (the disc's default soundtrack). Most of the action is limited to the mains, although Patrick Doyle's score wraps around us. The LFE channel participates infrequently. The highlight of this disc is an outstanding commentary by Branagh, in which he takes us deep inside the production. The Shakespearian hyphenate has been accused of egomania in the past, yet in discussing Dead Again, he is reluctant to take credit for any of its effective moments, dolloping praise on his team time and again. Most impressively, Branagh never runs out of energy, rather personably chatting away about his smoking habit, his loyalty to certain actors, in-jokes, the test-screening process, etc., until the bitter end.
Whenever producer Lindsay Doran takes a breath, Frank gets to speak in a second commentary–which is to say, rarely. After listening to Branagh, I felt that these two–Doran (who refers to Dead Again as "my movie"), especially–had very little of consequence to add. Producers are great organizers and money-conscious folk, but if they were creative types, they wouldn't be producers, would they? Wry Frank, who's fond of pointing out Dead Again's weaknesses, would've been more satisfying by his lonesome or with Branagh, I suspect. The only other supplement is an anamorphic trailer that's not exactly spoiler-free.
107 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround, French Dolby Surround; CC; English subtitles; DVD-5; Region One; Paramount
