Darkman
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Colin Friels, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake, Liam Neeson, Nelson MashitaBrand: MCA
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 96 minutes
Published: 1998-03-01
DVD Release Date: 1998-03-31
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Universal Studios
Movie Reviews of Darkman
Movie Review: Face----Off!
Summary: 5 Stars
Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson)has it all: he's a research scientist pioneering cutting edge treatments in skin graft technology, using his well-stocked science lab and dedicated science interns to develop synthetic skin.
But wouldn't you know it, Peyton also has woman problems. Not that ambitious lawyer Julie (Frances McDormand) doesn't adore him: quite the contrary. But Julie is sniffing out corruption at City Hall, and makes the disastrous mistake of leaving documents---the Bellisarius Memorandum!---implicating powerful local land developer Louis Strack Jr. (Colin Friels) in Peyton's lab.
Henchman and sadist Robert G. Durant (Larry Drake) shows up, and shuts down Peyton, his lab, his eager interns, and his science project---with extreme prejudice, enlisting a little torture, dismemberment, mutilation, and general havoc and brutality (as well as the ever useful Evil Villain Exploding Laboratory technique) to provide Dr. Peyton Westlake with a generous---if sudden---early retirement package.
But the explosion that obliterates Westlake's lab and covers up the cigar-chomping Durant's dirty deeds also catapults the unlucky scientist into the harbor, sparing his life. There *is* a downside: He's burned, he's folded, he's spindled and mutilated and doesn't have much of a face---indeed, what's left looks sorta like what happens when you stretch a particularly hot, stringy, cheesy pepperoni pizza---but being a (now mad)scientist, he's got an ace up his labcoat.
He has the Synethetic Skin, and a Score to settle: so he uses the Skin as a ready-made disguise, a kind of Face-Club-for-Men, providing him with all sorts of convenient methods by which he can infiltrate the Enemy and destroy him. Problem is, the Synethetic Skin isn't quite ready for prime time (or even, say, Joan Rivers's face): it's highly unstable and degrades into a useless blob (hi, Pizzaface!) in 99 minutes. Plus maybe a little longer when it's Dark.
Consequently, Peyton Westlake becomes the incredible melting Darkman, and we get treated to what would, in retrospect, be a midpoint for director Sam Raimi's career. He hadn't quite left the sick indie glory world of "Evil Dead", and he hadn't quite entered the Hollywood mega-blockbuster zone of "Spider-Man". Result: gore, goop, and a happily demented anti-superhero origin story.
I love Spider-Man; particularly the second installment, in which Sam Raimi nailed the reality of the superhero's lonely life. But for all the flamboyant glory of his Spidey series, it's not gory, it's not sick, it's not deviant, it's not damn-the-torpedoes disgusting---it's not really meant to be.
By contrast, "Darkman" is the all-American superhero by way of "Evil Dead", the slum-dweller equivalent of "Spider-man", sorta like Spidey's trailer-dwelling cousin who lives across town near the chemical plant. Raimi is at his warped best here, and Darkman reveals its steel knuckles and packs a wallop on your overloaded cranium: at its heart, Darkman is a brutal, nasty, wickedly stealthy revenge flick.
Raimi keeps it moving blackly along, Cinematographer Bill Pope (who later did the camera-work for The Matrix trilogy) ensures that everything looks twistedly gorgeous along the way, and composer Danny Elfman makes sure the sountrack has the warp and woof and bump and grind the flick requires.
Everybody delivers on the acting, particularly Liam Neeson, bringing class and conviction to what would later become a breakout role, and expressing himself beneath all those bandages, meat, gore, blood and goop. Particularly good is the talented Larry Drake playing Durant, one of the greatest, down-to-business, no-bullsh*t-or-I'll-slaughter-ya criminal masterminds in cinematic history. Here is a guy who wastes no time, takes no prisoners; Durant wouldn't be caught dead leaving the hero alone, out of sight, with an inattentive guard. He'd just shoot him on the spot.
And Raimi uses Durant to make it absolutely clear what kind of flick Darkman is going to be from the start: Sam primes the pump, sets the stage in a charming little scene that, for my money, is one of the best ever. Before even the opening credits, Durant's gang has just annihilated a rival gang, which tried to ambush them in a warehouse under the pretense of talking over a 'deal'. A prisoner---a survivor, really, the only rival gangster not riddled with bullets from Durant's thugs---is hauled before Drake, who brandishes a cigar cutter, which he proceeds to slide over the man's index finger.
"Point One: I try not to let me anger get the better of me", he says, as he slices off the man's finger, the fingerbone making a jolly crisp snapping sound as counterpoint to Durant. "Point Two: I don't always succeed", he says, fitting and slicing another finger.
"And Point Three: I've got Seven more Points" he says, snipping the blade home a third time. Cue screams and opening titles---I mean, come on, how can you *not* like a flick---and a thug---like that? When I grow up, I wanna be Robert G. Durant.
Punisher take notes: this is how you serve up a tasty dish of Revenge. Lock, load, and set your watch for 99 minutes: nobody settles a score like Pizzaface---er, I mean Darkman.
JSG
Summary of Darkman
Synopsis:Item Type: DVD Movie
Item Rating: R
Street Date: 11/02/10
Wide Screen: yes
Director Cut: no
Special Edition: no
LanguageENGLISH
Foreign Film: no
Subtitlesno
Dubbed: no
Full Frame: no
Re-Release: no
Packaging: Sleeve Please note: This supplier will be closed on 11/24, 11/25, 12/26, 1/2 for the holidays. The shipping cut off is 12/10 to try and have the products delivered by Christmas.
When attorney Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand) uncovers corrupt city real estate dealings, evil thugs attack her scientist boyfriend, Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson). Left for dead after his lab is detonated, he miraculously survives when the ensuing blast hurls him into the nearby harbor. Treated as a John Doe at a city hospital, he is unknowingly submitted to radical therapy which numbs his nerves to feeling--but which heightens his strength and his emotions. Once conscious, Peyton escapes from the hospital and builds a ramshackle lab in an abandoned industrial plant. Horribly burned and scarred by the lab explosion, he uses synthetic skin to impersonate his would-be murderers and seek retribution for their evil deeds. Peyton also tries to reunite with Julie, who believes him to be dead. While the film has an average script, it is overcome by the flashy cinematography of Bill Pope, the bombastic score by Danny Elfman, and the well-choreographed direction of Sam Raimi. The director confidently walks the line between suspense, action, comedy, and romance as he examines a bitter, victimized antihero who risks becoming as monstrous on the inside as he appears on the outside. --Bryan Reesman
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