Lost Souls, 2000

This is Janusz Kaminski's directorial debut and, for my money, he should just stay behind the camera and leave the directing to someone who knows how to tell a story.

Kaminski became most famous in 1993/94 when he won an Academy Award for cinematography for Spielberg's Shindler's List. Ever since, he's been Spielberg's golden boy, shooting some of the most beautiful photography ever. Kaminski did not shoot his own film, but his influence can be seen in almost every shot. Lost Souls is a well shot film, there is some nice photography, nice lighting, nice angles... but everything else is just plain bad.

This film has been hailed as the Exorcist of our time. With all due respect... give me a break.

Attempting to capitalize (and late, mind you) on the phenomenon fad that ended in late 99 with End of Days (a similar plot, by the way), and also included Stir of Echoes, Stigmata (another terrible film) and The Sixth Sense... Souls falls short, borrowing imagery from every possession movie you and your brother and your brothers girlfriend can think of.

Written by Pierce Gardner (his first time out) and Betsy Stahl (who, I guess, has soooo much money that she even helped bankroll this god awful film as executive producer), this film comes under the heading of amateurish and, well, for lack of a better word, plagiarized. There was one original idea in the entire story... that was all.

Putting aside the god awful story for a moment, I will focus on the actors. Here goes.

Winona Ryder should hang it up. She hasn't done a decent movie since (thinking... thinking...... give me a minute.....), well, I'll be kind and say Dracula. Then Edward Scissorhands, Heathers, Beetlejuice... and that's about it. Her acting has become something like forced attrition (thanks Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en), heh) and she is far from believable. Mainly, I wanted her to have a nice, non-speaking role. But to no avail.

Ben Chaplin (not related to Charlie) was quite good in The Thin Red Line. I had an art teacher once who would come up and analyze your drawing (we drew from life... figures, you know?). He would say "Nice hand," or "Nice arm," or "Nice face." He would say those things if the rest of your drawing sucked... telling you to quit concentrating on one spot and get to drawing the entire figure. That's what I have to say to Ben Chaplin. "Nice job in The Thin Red Line." His acting in this film is wooden, un-moving... just plain ole boring. I could have cared less for his character.

Which brings me back to the writing again. After I joined Project Greenlight, having never interacted with other screenwriters before... I learned more in one week about the do's and don't's of scriptwriting than I had in three years. The first thing I learned was that the inciting incident with pertinent plot information should take place in the first five minutes (possible, and I stress possibly) ten minutes of the picture. It took over twenty minutes to get the plot down in this picture... and from there, it dragged on with an impossible slowness that I attest to the writers first time out. I mean, did they get anyone who's ever read a script to read the damned thing?

I think one of the things they tried to do was set up the entire film with a quote from the bible, on a title card, in the very beginning of the film. Pierce, Betsy... come on. Be more original. Tell the story, don't explain it in a title card. Jesus.

From the directing point of view, it's obvious that Kaminsky has no idea how to tell a story. From the photography, to the crappy recycled special effects, to the editing, the film does not flow in one general direction at all. It jumps and skips and slides into corners, then back tracks then tries to go forward again... and ultimately fails.

Kaminski gave the responsibility of shooting this film to Mauro Fiore, who also did the photography for Get Carter, did a mediocre job with this film... again, looking like an MTV video for Tool or Marilyn Manson. Some of it was neat, well lit, nice angles... but I do not attest this favorable part of the film to Fiore at all. I give this credit all to Kaminski. I think Fiore is more of a hack than anything else... his other, previous films are completely unrecognizable, which means nothing in and of itself... but signals something. His upcoming movies include Driven, which will be directed by wash-out Renny Harlin, Highway, directed by James Cox (another obscure name) and Training Day, directed by Antoine Fuqua who directed the MTV film The Replacement Killers (a terrible film). I see nothing good on the horizon of Fiore except he'll keep getting mediocre work.

Back to acting... Philip Baker Hall is one of my favorite actors. My all time favorite roll of his is in P.T. Anderson's Hard Eight. He takes that role and runs with it... drawing us into this great character Sydney. Working for over 30 years in the acting industry, Hall has become one of the great character actors over the last 13 years, starting with a great role as Sidney (heh) in Midnight Run, Say Anything, The Rock, Air Force One, Boogie Nights, Rush Hour, Cradle Will Rock, The Insider, Magnolia (my second favorite role of his) The Talented Mr. Ripley, Rules of Engagement, The Contender and the upcoming A Gentleman's Game directed by first timer J. Mills Goodloe (who also wrote the script).

In this film, Hall was not used correctly. I guess Kaminski also doesn't have his way with the actors as well.

I went into the video store and saw this on the shelf, told my wife "This is Kaminski's new movie, it's supposed to be scary as hell." She agreed and we took it home. Suffice it to say... names mean shit. They mean nothing... and talent, well, it's subjective. Being a cinematographer and then becoming a director doesn't work for many... Jan De Bont, Barry Sonnenfeld... those are two examples of cinematographers who did ok, but not fantastic work as directors. Kubrick... there's a guy who had talent... the ability to tell a story, to direct his actors and to hire people he trusted behind the camera. I think this was a case of ego, nothing more.

Not worth renting, owning or stealing.

J.P.

go to top of page