Not exactly feature-heavy, the DVD release of Mark Pellington's dark, post-McVeigh psychodrama provides a lot of insights with its audio commentary. Pellington and star Jeff Bridges comment throughout the movie on its strengths, its weaknesses, and what they wanted to do here and there. They both heap - justly - much praise upon Tim Robbins, whose stone cold conspirator-next-door portrayal anchors the movie while Bridges goes, ever so slowly, off the deep end.

And in the course of listening to the commentary, I gradually come to think to myself, "Here are two guys who are probably never going to make a movie together again."

Don't get me wrong - I really dig this movie for the most part. It's directed in a style very much like David Lynch's unnerving, "quick-cuts-to-nothing-between-shots" way of making a film. (Indeed, the Lynch parallels are cemented by the presence of music composer Angelo Badalamenti, who crafted the eerily jazzy sound of Lynch's Twin Peaks.) But occasionally, with Pellington making comment such as "I wanted a f**ked-up, security-camera view of suburbia" (in the opening titles), I get the feeling he was more concerned with style than substance.

In the meantime, I come out of the commentary with a glowing admiration for Jeff Bridges. Well, let me qualify that - I have always had a glowing admiration for Jeff Bridges, even in movies like Tron which don't use him to the best of his abilities. When I realize how much his intuitive acting style grounded a movie that could've ascended to stratospheric heights of pure weirdness in Pellington's hands, I gain more respect for Bridges and absent co-star Robbins as the real saviors of the movie.

The DVD transfer itself is very crisp, and you will be wanting to hook up the surround sound gear for this one. It's worth it.

Especially at the end.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com editor/webmaster