Grim, engrossing U.K. TV mystery from the best-selling crime novel. No doubt in an effort to soak up some of that ancillary James Bond promotional gravy, BBC and Warner Home Video have released The Ice House, the 1997 television adaptation of Minette Walters’ award-winning novel, starring Daniel Craig, Corin Redgrave, Kitty Aldridge, Frances Barber, and Penny Downie. A forbidding, depressing mystery that touches on uncomfortable themes such as pedophilia, homophobia, lawless retribution, and incest, The Ice House is recommended viewing for those U.K. mystery fans who like their “cozy village mysteries” not so cozy. A lengthy featurette on the author is included as a welcome bonus for this good-looking transfer.

Street Grange, Silverbourne. Frightened handyman Fred Phillips (Dave Hill) comes running up to the Grange’s owner, Phoebe Maybury (Penny Downie), who’s enjoying the morning on her patio with housemates Anne Cattrell (Kitty Aldridge) and Diana Goode (Frances Barber). Fred, badly shaken, has found a badly decomposed, partially consumed nude body in the abandoned ice house, located inside an overgrown hillock on the grounds. The police are called, with coarse, single-minded Detective Chief Inspector George Walsh (Corin Redgrave, excellent as always in an unsympathetic, to say the least, role) taking along his Detective Sergeant Andy McLoughlin (Daniel Craig), to interview the “butch beauties” of Street Grange. D.C.I. Walsh is almost positive the body in the ice house is Maybury’s long-lost husband David (Paul Jerricho), who went missing ten years, and whom many people in the local village believe was murdered by Phoebe. The locals, hostile towards Maybury because they believe she also killed her parents for her inheritance, are equally unaccepting of her lifestyle: they disparage her and her housemates as predatory lesbians. That’s certainly the story that D.S. McLoughlin, newly separated from his wife and tilting dangerously towards alcoholism, has heard, an impression confirmed by dismissive, contemptuous Anne. Soon, however, Andy learns that nothing is as it seems at Street Grange, as the nude body in the ice house remains unidentified…and Andy becomes romantically involved with Anne.

I’ve never read any of Minette Walters’ novels, so I can’t speak to how faithful The Ice House is to its source material (which shouldn’t matter anyway: books and movies are two entirely different―and separate―aesthetic experiences). However, the best compliment I can give this three-hour TV adaptation, at least in the context of her works, is that after watching it, I got online and requested the novel from our local library. That may not help Walters’ royalty statement at the end of the year, but like many literary works adapted into movies, it’s a good rule of thumb that having a built-in “commercial” out there for a title―especially one as gripping as The Ice House―can only promote sales long-term.

About a year or so ago I had a reader really take me to task for revealing the end of a movie (despite a big red “spoiler alert” warning in the text), and ever since, I’ve tried to take his criticism to heart and lay off the “big reveal,” even if that does necessarily make a review like this one for The Ice House much more generalized than I’d like. After all, how can you truly discuss the nuances of a mystery, and why it succeeds or doesn’t, if you can’t spell out the mystery itself (to take an obvious example that won’t spoil anything for anyone: how do you really discuss Psycho without revealing what, exactly, Anthony Perkins, and not his dead mother, is doing?). Still, The Ice House‘s mystery line is so cleverly developed within its romance/social issues framework, with believable red herring clues and a genuine “twist” ending (that I didn’t see coming at all)―all the more powerful because they weren’t gimmicky―that I won’t go into the kind of detail that would spoil the movie for anyone else who isn’t familiar with the novel.

Adapted by actress/screenwriter Lizzie Mickery (U.K. television like Heartbeat and The Bill), and directed by Tim Fywell (TV movies like Norma Jean & Marilyn and Madame Bovary), The Ice House‘s overriding tone of gloomy, depressive secrecy and duplicity was a welcome departure from the more “sunny” (if you will), ironic, perverse (but equally deadly) “cozy village mysteries” I usually review here at DVDTalk. While the dark degree of the human foibles and subsequent motives for murder in The Ice House can find sympathetic echoes in Christie’s Marple and Poirot mysteries, or in newer fare such as Midsomer Murders, the ameliorating nostalgia of the Christie period decors or the delightfully wicked, grotesque humor of your average Midsomer episode, are completely missing from The Ice House (if the family dog ate a corpse in Midsomer if would get a laugh; here, it makes someone almost vomit). An oppressive curtain of pain and secrecy hangs over Street Grange, strangling and depleting its inhabitants with a sense of dread manifest literally with a “skeleton in the closet” (or two…). The village locals are no better off, ruled by unfounded prejudice and surprisingly potent, sudden violence, while the police, the detectives who are supposed to bring order and justice into the mystery format, are either dysfunctional, emotional cripples who also rely on ill-informed preconceived notions…or outright liars and active parties to injustice.

By drawing a portrait that has everyone so emotionally devastated by past events in The Ice House, Walters (I’m assuming) pulls off the neat trick of taking what could have been a facile, clichéd plot development―Andy’s romance with Anne―and by contrast, turning it into a surprisingly resonant exploration of instant (but conflicting) attraction and eventual emotional salvation. Considering how personally mismatched the two characters are to begin with, deepened by their adversarial roles, it’s quite touching to see how Walters, Mickery, Fywell, and Craig and Aldridge take these damaged people and create a believable romance, particularly for Craig’s character, who goes from bigoted alcoholic to a copper with a conscience and a lover who acknowledges he needs time to reawaken his innate sensitivity. Don’t get me wrong: The Ice House‘s mystery is crackerjack, deepened by Walters’ grasp of the primal, ugly, subterranean forces at work beneath her enjoyable twists and turns and red herrings. However, I found the central romance, enacted with snappy chemistry between the alluring, enigmatic Aldridge and Craig (in the first performance of his I’ve actually enjoyed), as rewarding as Walters’ one-two punch of first-rate mystery and unsettling social commentary. If you tend to rely on the more “comfortable” English village mysteries when you want a bit U.K. suspense, then you owe it to yourself to stretch a bit with the puzzling, disturbing The Ice House.

The DVD:

The Video:
The Ice House has been side-matted for a crisp, clean 14:9 anamorphic transfer here. Colors are suitably deep and dark, with no pesky PAL conversion issues I could spot.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English stereo audio track didn’t display a heavy directionality, but it was, like the video, super-clean, with no hiss or fluctuation. English subtitles are available.

The Extras:
There’s a BBC featurette from 2001, Minette Walters On Writing a Novel, included here. It runs 48:43. Informative.

Final Thoughts:
Depressing, disturbing mystery, with a surprisingly touching romance at its center. The Ice House is highly recommended viewing for fans of U.K. television and mystery.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published movie and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

THE PROGRAM

“Dragon Ball Z: Kai” is a unique simultaneous re-mastering and re-telling of the classic “Dragon Ball Z” anime series. For the uninitiated, “Kai” takes the original 291-episode run and trims the fat, omitting filler episodes in order to present a series that more closely resembles the original storyline of the mangas. The result is 98-episodes of lean, mean and far from childish storytelling. Initially released in two-volume per season installments, for a total of eight-volumes, Funimation is going back and re-releasing “Kai” as standalone, complete seasons, meaning viewers can enjoy the series as it originally aired, as opposed to encountering false breaks while waiting for a second release.

“Dragon Ball Z: Kai” season three is a bit of fresh air, eventually introducing some new foes for our hero Goku and company to face off against, but not before concluding last season’s arc involving Frieza. One of the more frustrating, but likely not surprising early developments in the third season is the false absence of Goku. It lasts a couple episodes at best, teasing viewers with maybe some more time spent with the large cast of colorful supporting characters, but like clockwork, Goku returns to save the day. It’s not all for nothing though, as Goku finds himself sidelined not too much later on as the season’s new villains, the Androids provide a new flavor of villainy for our heroes and anti-heroes alike to combat.

Unfortunately, for as much as the Androids bring to the table, the series quickly falls into a comfortable lull, bombarding viewers with episode after episode of battles that quickly lose their epic feel as they become the status quo. Midway through the season, the series is fast approaching shaky ground, but like the early tease of an absent Goku being premature, the season does manage to recover with a few elementary, but engaging plot twists and the introduction of an even greater foe, Cell. Is any of this really creative or inspired? Probably not, but “Kai” manages to defy the odds and emerge at the end of the day, still entertaining, but not nearly as fresh as it began.

The third season of “Dragon Ball Z: Kai” is definitely the weakest thus far, but its final run of episodes does set up some interesting character developments, in particular the greater emphasis put on Gohan and his ultimate potential as a Super Saiyan. With only 21 episodes left, there’s still a compelling enough reason to see the series to its conclusion. At the very minimum, “Dragon Ball Z: Kai” proves its necessity to exist by showing how at even 98-episodes, “Dragon Ball Z” can be a somewhat bloated series at times, trotting out the same formula, often multiple times in a row.

THE DVD

The Video

The 1.33:1 original aspect ratio transfer is definitely far cleaner and vibrant than the assorted “Dragon Ball Z” material I’ve seen in the past. There’s a very minimal amount of compression in some shots, but considering how this new version of the series was crafted together, some elements still have some slightly faded quality to them. No one will ever mistake this for being a modern piece of animated work nor something from the heyday of classic Disney, but compared to other anime series’ of the timeframe, this is a very good looking transfer.

The Audio

The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track has considerable more life than the very flat and thin, original language stereo track. While voice work is incredibly well orchestrated, the dub is a bit more dominant than any other element of the sound mix. Effects are strong as forceful, despite the slight overshadowing by dialogue, but the accompanying score can sometimes go unnoticed. The Japanese stereo track, as stated above is far more flat sounding, but the overall mix is much more satisfactory. English subtitles are included that only accompany the Japanese audio.

The Extras

The only extras are textless credits.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re going to buy “Dragon Ball Z: Kai” depends on how well you love the source material as well as the desire in wanting a leaner series. While this third season does conclude developments that took place over season two, the initial promise of something new with the appearance of the Androids, quickly enters familiar territory. The season does recover and once again, manage to hook viewers into giving the fourth and final season a go, but at this point, the series is really only for fans truly wowed by the first half of the entire run. Recommended.

THE MOVIE:

Plenty of action movies promise non-stop thrills but Sleepless Night is one of the few that actually delivers. Director Frédéric Jardin’s film is an unyielding shot of adrenaline that simply can’t be denied. It goes and goes and just when a lesser film would have paused for a breather, it takes off like a rocket.

As the film opens, we hit the ground running with Vincent (Tomer Sisley) and Manuel (Laurent Stocker) who steal a duffel bag filled with cocaine from a couple of thugs. Unfortunately, things get messy in a hurry when Manuel gets trigger happy. In the ensuing commotion, one of the thugs is killed and the other escapes but not before getting a good look at Vincent’s face. This is going to be a problem because Vincent and Manuel are actually cops…dirty ones, but cops nonetheless. The heist comes back to haunt Vincent in a big way when his son (Samy Seghir) gets snatched by José Marciano (Serge Riaboukine), the drug lord whose inventory is now short one duffel bag of cocaine.

Marciano’s not an unreasonable man. He’s willing to make a trade. If Vincent shows up at Marciano’s nightclub The Tarmac with the drugs all accounted for, he can collect his son and be on his merry way. This turns out to be easier said than done as other players enter the frame. There’s Lacombe (Julien Boisselier), a corrupt Internal Affairs officer who is working with Manuel and Vignali (Lizzie Brocheré), Lacombe’s eager underling who doesn’t recognize the monster she’s working for. Let’s also not forget Feydek (Joey Starr) and Yilmaz (Birol Ünel) who are impatiently waiting to purchase the drugs that Marciano is currently missing. The Tarmac is about to get very crowded and that’s before you even account for the hundreds of shiny, happy club goers that are going to descend on the joint.

There’s an obvious genre analogy to be made here so I won’t be coy about it. A determined man of action who goes up against incredible odds to save his kidnapped child could just as easily apply to Taken (a film I love dearly) but the comparison ends right at the surface. The devil, after all, is in the details. The strength of Jardin’s film lies in the character of Vincent who convincingly comes across as the underdog. He isn’t a superhero with a very particular set of skills. He’s just a streetwise cop who’s good at thinking on his feet. Not all of his plans work out (in fact, very few do) but he’s resourceful enough to stay alive long enough to come up with a new one. His unpredictability adds a dose of danger that more conservative action flicks can only dream of.

For a film as fast-paced as this (it really does fly), one may expect that character development would take a major hit. My concerns were put to rest by the intelligent screenplay that extracts tiny glimpses of Vincent’s humanity with every nigh impossible obstacle he tackles. His frustration, his anger and even his sadness are handled with sensitivity and efficiency. This doesn’t prevent Jardin from occasionally reminding us that though Vincent’s mission is virtuous, he still isn’t an angel. His use of excessive force against Vignali is borderline uncomfortable but acts as a reminder that we are watching a man very close to the edge of his sanity. Tomer Sisley absolutely shines in the lead role and manages to keep us on Vincent’s side, even in difficult moments like this.

While all the performers acquit themselves admirably, a pivotal role actually belongs to the club itself. The structure complete with its writhing mass of singing, dancing partiers features so prominently that it quickly becomes a characters in its own right. Watching Vincent navigate its differently themed rooms and battling its crowds to get from place to place is pulse-quickening in itself. One of the most touching moments comes courtesy of a young lady that Vincent saves from a lecherous drunk. Enamored by him, she follows Vincent like a lost puppy until he is forced to cut her loose. Their relationship is brief and practically silent but it offers a shared calm experience in the midst of the chaos surrounding them.

If there are any missteps in the film, they are barely worth pointing out. The jittery, frenetic camera work conveys urgency for the most part but it occasionally feels gratuitous (especially in the quiet moments). The post-climax scenes also stretch the film out to deliver an emotional impact that feels excessive. Thankfully, these are truly minor nitpicks and you’ll be too exhausted from the running / punching / shooting / bleeding to really care. This is visceral, forceful entertainment that demands to be experienced.

THE DVD:

Video:
The anamorphic widescreen image offers up decent contrast and black levels which is important considering how much of the film takes place at night or in dark corners of the nightclub. Tom Stern, the cinematographer, employs a jittery handheld style with his camera always on the move. Given that, some of the visual aspects like occasional heavy grain and softness in certain scenes seem to be intentional and indicative of what the director was going for. Fine detail is certainly not lacking in plentiful close-ups. This is a perfectly suitable presentation for the material at hand.

Audio:
The audio is presented in French 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround and 2.0 Stereo mixes with English subtitles. I chose to view the film with the surround mix and it did not disappoint. The score by Nicolas Errèra is a pulsating twitchy thing of beauty. Thankfully the mix gives it ample support. Since the film is set in a nightclub, it’s nice to have the pounding, electronic music of The Tarmac come through with such oomph. Dialogue is clear and doesn’t get overwhelmed while the action roars to life with great regularity.

Extras:
The only extra is An Interview with the Cast of Sleepless Night (4:47). This extremely brief featurette is loaded with footage from the film and just a few sound bites from Tomer Sisley, Samy Seghir and Joey Starr on what their characters bring to the film.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Director Frédéric Jardin has created something special here. This is a pulse-pounding thriller that absolutely delivers on its promise (and then some). Tomer Sisley makes his ass-kicking lead utterly believable by underscoring the heroics with vulnerability and intelligence. Sleepless Night is a relentless wonder worth seeking out. Highly Recommended.

THE MOVIE:

I’ll just come clean at the start: I’ve always had mixed feelings about LCD Soundsystem. The band’s miasma of New Order riffs, Suicide drumbeats, and 1980s vocal eclecticism is appealing in short doses, but I often find the songs go on too long, working one idea to death, and outstaying their welcome.

With this in mind, it maybe shouldn’t really be a surprise that I have similar misgivings about Shut Up and Play the Hits, the documentary about the band’s last performance, a massive three-hour-plus event at Madison Square Garden in April 2011. James Murphy, the frontman and principal songwriter, had decided to end the group after three albums, to go out while he was still proud of all he had accomplished, and punctuate the whole affair with a big party at a legendary venue. It’s a movie that is at times exhilarating, especially when the live footage takes over, and at other times perplexing and dull, maybe lingering too long on the moment in an effort to force a heavier meaning on the whole thing.

Shut Up and Play the Hits is directed by Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern, who previously directed the Blur documentary No Distance Left to Run. To provide context for the LCD show, they film Murphy in the days leading up to the concert and the day after, tracking the nervousness and minutia that consumes him in preparation of the massive event, and then letting the boredom sink in as he comes down from the high. All these timelines are chopped up and shuffled, the cinematic journal jumping between the different days, live tracks, and a sitdown interview with Murphy and writer Chuck Klosterman. The stuff about the business of shutting down a band ends up being pretty good; the long takes of Murphy staring pensively into space as he presumably contemplates what he has done–though he could just as easily be merely contemplating going back to bed–drag on and on and on and, at times, some of this wandering around even feels staged. You kind of wonder where the camera was, how they managed to be ahead of him while he walked his dog, or underneath him as he shaves his beard–all stuff you shouldn’t be wondering while watching a documentary. As Klosterman accurately points out, James Murphy is a man who finds it impossible to not be self-conscious; yet, here he is ignoring the fact that he’s being filmed.

These complaints are easy to forget once the music gets going. I never saw LCD Soundsystem live myself, but had I done so, it might have removed my doubts about their recorded output. (It’s been known to happen; a transcendent TV on the Radio concert completely changed how I heard their records.) Lovelace and Southern stick to the title’s maxim and mainly cull the hits from the sprawling performance–“Dance Yrslef Clean,” “Losing My Edge,” “North American Scum” (with guest backing vocals by members of the Arcade Fire), “All My Friends,” “Us v Them,” a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Jump into the Fire,” and more. Reggie Watts also makes a guest appearance, and there is a horn section and a men’s vocal choir. The band is energetic and the camera swings from the stage to the audience to capture the experience of being there from both angles (and finding comedians Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover in the process). It’s scintillating and intense, and the show culminates in an emotional finale of “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down.”

Murphy’s dialogue with Klosterman attempts to wrestle with the meaning of this ending. What is its cultural significance? How does it fit with the mythology of rock ‘n’ roll? Murphy even wrestles with whether or not it’s a big mistake, or something he is doing for the right reasons. There are, of course, no definitive answers, because there is no distance. If I am reading it right, I believe the intention of Shut Up and Play the Hits is to get that assessment rolling, to create the document by which future rock journalists can argue the case. This may be some of what sucks the feeling of immediacy out of the effort, and it’s the kind of thing that Murphy says he never wanted to do with the band, and maybe this whole thing would have been better served had there actually been more shutting up, and just let the music speak for itself.

Which it does on the bonus discs, but more on those in a second…

THE DVD

Video:
Oscilloscope has brought Shut Up and Play the Hits to DVD as a 1.85:1 widescreen transfer. Resolution here is superb, with sharp lines and gorgeous color timing. The photography in the film is exquisite, capturing reality with an artistic eye, working with natural light to create a remarkable image of the band’s offstage activities, and going full-title disco for the onstage activities. Both look awesome, with only some slight blocking in some of the darker concert scenes–though that appears to be just a problem of capturing the complicated set-ups, not with the DVD authoring.

Sound:
Two sound options are offered, a 5.1 surround mix and a stereo mix, both in Dolby. The multi-channel choice is the way to go. The quiet scenes have excellent aural ambiance, while the concert goes big and goes loud. The use of front and back speakers means the music is all around you, and the crowd noise is mixed purposefully to make it sound like you’re standing in the audience listening.

What I will say about the 2.0, though, is that it has a more direct impact. Literally. The centered mix means you can really feel the heavy drumbeats in your chest.

Extras:
The usual multi-piece Oscilloscope packaging is very classy, with a foldable book coming inside a smartly designed slipcase. The multi-panel interior section has room for all three DVDs, as well as printed liner notes by Nick Sylvester, who led the men’s choir at the MSG show.

DVD 1 has the movie alongside several on-disc extras:
* Around 20 minutes more of the conversation between James Murphy and Chuck Klosterman.
* A short look at the men’s choir warming up.
* An even shorter reel of Murphy’s manager, Keith Wood, swearing.
* “Catching Up with Keith,” a 10-minute featurette showing Murphy going on a trip to see how that same manager is faring now that LCD Soundsystem is kaput.
* The theatrical trailer.

DVDs 2 and 3 have the full concert, a 3-and-a-half hour event, spread across both discs. All the songs are here, and in truth, this is the real selling point of the Shut Up and Play the Hits DVD release. This is essential material, and a must for any fans of good concert films. You really get to see the band do what they do, and experience the full breadth of their material, while also seeing how large an event this really was. The edit here largely matches the excerpts in Shut Up and Play the Hits, but without any interruptions or insertions. Sound options are also the same. Added backstage material fills in the breaks during the concert. Plus, the extra special Shit Robot cameo!

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Highly Recommended. More for the two bonus discs of the concert than the documentary itself. Shut Up and Play the Hits is a decent music documentary, especially when it stops with the self-important pondering and cuts to the live footage of LCD Soundsystem rocking Madison Square Garden. The event the band put together for their last show is huge, as evinced by the full three-and-a-half-hour uncut version. The performance is remarkable, and the presentation is bright and loud. The backstage stuff in the main documentary ranges from interesting to completely boring, but such is life, I suppose. Shut Up and Play the Hits indeed.

Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joëlle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent project is the comedy series Spell Checkers, again with Jones and artist Nicolas Hitori de. Follow Rich’s blog at Confessions123.com.