This DVD review was
originally penned for IGN, but never used, perhaps because of its use of the words canted, unswerving and artifice. Oh well. Their loss is your gain, arguably. To wit, slightly tweaked and redacted:
Among the many legacies of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was the twisty gangland
drama’s reintroduction and celebration of a chopped-up narrative — not so much
Rashômon-style differentiation in
point-of-view as using the intersected paths and cross currents of various
characters as a way to start in the middle of certain story strands and revisit
other scenes along the way. Sometimes this method works, if the point of entry
into the story and other various points of diversion all tell us something
about the characters’ fates or decision-making processes, however ironic or
doomed. Other times, though, it seems
merely a way to dress up a movie in
post-production, to put a hard, canted spin on things as if to then be able to
claim, “Voila — art is born!”
This latter instance of this technique gets quite a workout
in the desperate-to-please
Haven,
from newcomer Frank E. Flowers. Filmed entirely in the 100-square-mile West
Indian tropical paradise of the native Caymanian writer-director, the
ensemble
crime drama/coming-of-age picture also represents
star Orlando Bloom’s producing debut, perhaps automatically raising expectations and piquing the
interest of a mainstream, teeny-bopper audience that would otherwise never
snuggle up to such a cozy little serpentine movie. Either way, though,
Haven doesn’t really succeed; younger
audiences will grow weary of the long passages in which Bloom isn’t on screen,
while older audiences will find the attempts at air-quote, artistically pitched
interwoven narrative mostly derisible.
The film explores the murky connections between a number of
people living on or escaping to the
Cayman Islands, and
centers around two main stories or plots. First, there’s crooked businessman
Carl Ridley (
Bill Paxton) and his semi-estranged 18-year-old daughter Pippa
(Agnes Bruckner), together a step ahead of an FBI raid that descends upon their
Miami home. Once they land in the
Caymans, Pippa hooks up with local bad boy Fritz (
Raising Victor Vargas’ lip-smacking Victor Rasuk), a smooth-talking
youth who, when not trying to get into Pippa’s pants, is busy attempting to pay
off a debt to local drug lord Ritchie Rich (Raz Adoti) by passing along
information in ingratiating fashion. Then there’s Mr. Allen (Stephen Dillane),
a corrupt lawyer, in cahoots with Carl, who also has trouble connecting with
his own son Patrick (Lee Ingleby).
This tangled story — of stolen money, shifty motivations and
peddled self-interest — gets interwoven with a reformulated,
quasi-Shakespearean love story between Shy (Bloom) and Andrea (Zoë Saldana), a
pair of young lovers having a romance behind the back of Andrea’s angry older
brother, Hammer (Anthony Mackie), and father (Robert Wisdom), for whom Shy also
works. When they consummate their relationship and are found out, Andrea’s
father insists it is rape. Hammer, then, takes matters into his own hands, and disfigures
Shy by throwing acid in his face.
Haven possesses an
honest man’s dutiful attention to detail, but novelty of setting can only carry
one so far. Pristine beaches and colorful background noise mean nothing when
they’re not in service of a story that we care equally about, and Flowers
evidences no great skill at blending together these elements. Shy’s place as an
older local guy amongst this group is dubious, and Pippa is thinly sketched.
She’s hung up somewhere between rebellious and hurting, and ergo none of her
decisions make concrete sense. As an older brother powered purely by ill-informed
instinct, Mackie actually makes a nice impression.
Rasuk ladles on the yo-baby
charisma, which I found irritating but others might take as slyly amusing.
Other actors and performances, meanwhile, seem unfocused and/or untethered to
one another and the movie as a whole, making for a big mess that can’t end soon
enough.
Presented on a double-sided, single-layer disc and packaged
in a regular Amray case,
Haven comes
with animated menus and a small paper insert touting other Yari
Film Group home video releases, like
The Illusionist. In fact, in a throwback to DVD days of yore, it’s the trailer
for that Edward Norton film that starts automatically upon insertion of this
disc.
The movie is presented
on a flip-disc that includes a 1.33:1 full screen presentation and a 1.85:1
anamorphic widescreen presentation, the latter of which preserves the aspect
ratio of its original theatrical presentation. The transfer is solid, free from
any obvious digital artifacts. Resolution is consistent and clear, and there
are no problems whatsoever with grain, edge bleeding or artifacting. A decent
portion of the movie unfolds at outdoor locations, and
the lighting scheme is
solid, and color saturation constant and unswerving.
Haven is presented
with an English language, Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound mix, but
unfortunately it’s not a very good one at all. Dialogue is clear and consistent,
though the accents of the local dialect make the optional English or Spanish
subtitles worth throwing on almost purely as a precautionary measure once the
action settles in the Caymans.
Rear channels are barely used, and the film’s raucous
party scenes are mixed poorly. Surrounding atmospherics are also poorly
handled; whether it’s Shy doing yardwork or meeting back up with his friend
after barely escaping from Andrea’s room after oversleeping one morning, the
film is riddled with examples of on-screen, foregrounded action featuring no
corresponding foley work.
The sole supplemental extra is billed a behind-the-scenes
featurette, but in actuality only runs three minutes and 20 seconds. It’s a
glorified trailer, lifting 10 to 15 second sound bites from each principal cast
member about their character or first introduction to the script, and then interweaving
those with film clips that tell the basic arc of the film’s plot. Either before
viewing the feature presentation or afterward,
this is a complete waste of time
— an inclusion only to have something to mention on the back of the cover box. Two 30-second
teaser
trailers are also included herein, for
Find
Me Guilty and
Winter Passing.
That even these don’t get extended-run status is appropriate if still somewhat baffling.
Given that Haven
is such a personal story, and produced independently against considerable odds,
it’s puzzling that Flowers doesn’t sit for a commentary track or other
interview material. Whether this augurs a special edition release somewhere
further down the line is hard to say. The film’s theatrical box office
performance certainly didn’t warrant it, but stranger things have happened, I guess.
Bottom line:
Haven is pure
artifice, a cynically conceived indie film made to ape the conventions of other
labyrinthine ensemble thrillers. It features no imaginative twists or
sleights-of-hand, however, and though the movie looks decent and has some
novelty of setting, its jumbled narrative interactions are derivative,
implausible, boring, or all three.
D+ (Movie) D (Disc) 
