MOVIE COMPANY: Universal
CAST: Starring Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock, Greg Kinnear, Crispin Glover, Tia Texada and more.
DIRECTED BY: Neil Labute
WRITTEN BY: John C. Richards
RATING: Rated R
INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0171580
TYPE OF MOVIE: Comedy, Thriller
DURATION: 112 minutes
A Kansas City waitress (Renee Zellweger) with dreams of becoming a nurse becomes delusional after seeing her no-good car salesman husband (Aaron Eckhart) murdered. Becoming delusional from shock, she becomes convinced that she is the former fiancée of her soap opera idol (Greg Kinnear). What she also believes is that the soap opera is real and goes to LA to find the hospital where he works as a cardiologist. Meanwhile, her husband’s murderers (Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock) are searching for the drugs stolen by her husband and, as luck would have it, they are stored in the trunk of the car she drove off in. Freeman, an aging hitman planning his retirement after this job, also becomes delusional about the woman he is tracking. (IMDB)
DVD EXTRAS:
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby
• Two Separate Commentary Tracks:
• 1. Director and Cast (Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Renee Zellweger, Greg Kinnear)
• 2. Director and Crew (producers, music composer, Director of Photography, Costume Designer)
• A Reason to Love Soap Opera segments
• Deleted scenes
• Theatrical Trailer / 6 TV spots
• Hidden Bonus Features
• Widescreen anamorphic format
KNOWN DVD SECRET(S):
Alternate sequence:
Select the “Special Features” option at the main menu. Press Right to highlight the candle on the cupcake that Betty is holding. Press Enter to view an alternate sequence from the movie.
Hidden sequence:
Enter the “A Reason To Love” episode selection screen, highlight episode 1, then press Up. This will highlight the title “A Reason to Love”. Press Enter to view view Betty’s episode of the soap opera.
DVD REVIEW:
What an original dark comedy! A woman traumatized after seeing her husband murdered while watching her favorite soap then suffers from post-traumatic stress and ends up thinking that the soap opera is real and heads to California to find her soap opera boyfriend/character David (Kinnear).
The last time we seen a weird fan thinking a soap was real was on “Friends” with Brooke Shields character. But in this one, Renée Zellweger plays the character of Betty as a caring person and her performance is awesome! I don’t think I know any actress who could of played that part. She was perfectly cast.
The duo of Freeman and Rock was also awesome! Chris Rock plays a different character compared to his other movies and both performances were remarkable as with Kinnear’s performance as the soap opera actor.
The DVD features good digital 5.1 audio but since it’s a dialogue film, you shouldn’t expect much. As for video, the video is nice but some areas look a bit too reddish/orange. I wasn’t sure if it was the intended lighting.
As for the special features, the deleted scenes were a shock. The scenes show how ruthless Chris Rock’s character really is and also a scene that was cut because of its violence. My favorite special feature is the soap opera clips. To see Sung Hi Lee was awesome! As for the two different commentary, it was a blast to hear the cast commentary with the director. Everyone was having fun and not too much dead air. Last, there is the movie trailer and a plethora of TV trailers.
All in all, a film that is enjoyable and if you like dark comedies like Fargo, you will like this film and the DVD.
THE MOVIE:Â A-
THE DVD EXTRAS:Â B+
THE DVD OVERALL:Â A-