Matt Stone
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Havoc (Unrated Edition)
Directed By: Barbara Kopple
Studio: New Line
Year: 2005
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Anamorphic)
Running Time: 92 Mins.
Rating: UR (For Strong Sexual Content, Nudity, Pervasive Language, Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use)
Audio: 5.1 DTS (English), 5.1 Dolby Digital (English), 2.0 Dolby Digital (English)
Subtitles: English and Spanish
MSRP: $19.97
Street Date: 29 November, 2005
Review Date: 26 November, 2005
(Ratings are out of five stars)
Summary
Havoc follows a group of young unaffected teens in the Californian suburbs who become immersed in the gansta lifestyle. In the forefront is Anne Hathaway’s Allison and her best friend Emily (Bijou Phillips). Their infatuation with the “other side” leads them directly to downtown LA, where they see what they’ve been romanticizing up close. The film was promoted as Anne Hathaway Gone Wild, do to the dramatic departure from the rest of her work.
The cast is actually pretty solid. I wasn’t looking forward to this film, but when the opening credits started appearing, my interest perked up a bit. There’s a level of uncomfortable humor associated with watching a bunch of rich, spoiled, white kids acting like stereotypical urban black youth. This may not be a problem with the film, per se, but it makes the first half-hour of the film a little hard to sit through. The film gets off to a rocky start, but it does get going after a while. Anne Hathaway stands out among the kids, but Matt O’Leary also turns in some solid work (as the films moral compass/documentary film-maker). I really liked O’Leary in Bill Paxton’s excellent Frailty and I was glad to see him again here. Six Feet Under’s Freddy Rodriguez also has some strong supporting work as a Hispanic drug dealer.
The film is obviously trying to work as a commentary on the identity crisis apparently affecting rich, white youth in California. Regardless of if the subject matter is accurate or not, it’s presented far too melodramatically. In general, I’m not a fan of Larry Clark films, but I prefer some of their raw elements to the pretentiousness of this film. For the most part, it just felt white kids playing dress-up for a movie. On the other hand, Hathaway got to play a good portion of the film straight, which leaves a large disparity in the quality level between the straight and gansta scenes.. Some of the acting is suspect (Joseph Gordon-Levitt does really, really bad gansta-talk), but for the most part it’s not too bad.
On the plus side, Anne Hathaway is very, very hot. I’m starting to see what John Williamson can’t stop raving about
.Film Rating: :star::star::star:1/2
Video
The transfer is very good. Grain was very limited and I didn’t notice any edge enhancement, pixelation, or other artifacting. New Line tends to make very accurate transfers, and this is no exception. The color palette is stylized with darker, redder colors for the urban sequences and lighter, bluer colors for the suburban scenes. I’m assuming this is how it was presented theatrically, and luckily the transfer doesn’t over-correct the color timing.
Video Rating: :star::star::star::star:1/2
Audio
The film sounds just as good as it looks. There aren’t any rooftop, bullet-time sequences or any starship battles, but the music and ambiance sounds very accurate. The soundtrack comes in both DTS and Dolby Digital varieties, and as you might expect they sound pretty close. The DTS track sounded a little more “open” during the louder scenes, but that may just have been because it was mastered louder. Cliff Martinez’s score sounds very good as well. He does ambiance as good as anyone, and it sounds especially good here.
Audio Rating: :star::star::star::star:
Extras
This DVD features the Theatrical Trailer for Havoc as well as trailers for a few other New Line films.
Extras Rating: ZERO
In Closing…
I may not be the biggest fan of the film, but I’m definitely an Anne Hathaway fan now. She acts circles around most of the rest of the cast and has a very strong screen presence. If she decides to leave the Disney movies behind her and stick to more dramatic work in the future, she’ll really thrive. As for the film, I’m a little mixed. Talking to people who saw it premiere at Sundance a couple years ago, I wasn’t looking forward to watching it. Going into it with my low expectations, I was surprisingly pleased with the end result. The film isn’t without faults, but there were a lot of good aspects, and a few great sequences (especially the one-on-one stuff between Hathaway and O’Leary). If you’re a fan of gritty teen dramas, I can definitely recommend this one as a rental. I only recommend you buy this if you’ve already seen it, and already intend on buying it. The special features are non-existent, and I don’t see much of a reason to re-watch it.
Overall Rating: :star::star::star:
Matt Stone
26 November, 2005
