The Gift

He's a great writer, a great director and has the eye when it comes to producing (though I do not like any of that Hercules and Zena shit).

The Gift is his latest opus to the big screen, and it's a doozy. The second serious drama from Raimi, written by the unlikely team of Billy Bob Thorton (Sling Blade) and Tom Epperson (who has not done one thing I recognize), is full of twists and turns and a few scares that make it a nice, neat, original thriller by a director who was able to put it all together, well.

The writing was first rate. The dialog was great, the characters were great, the scenes were seemless... but there was some of that recycled horror that we've seen in a dozen films that made me shake my head. They were few and far between, but they were there.

Cate Blanchett was wonderful as the woman with ESP abilities. She acted with great emotion, putting on one of the most believable acts of the last year. Katie Holmes was terrible. I don't like any of her work, especially her Dawson's Creek stuff... I don't even tune in. I tollerated her roll in Go (1999), which I thought was a terrific film.

Keanu Reeves never said "Whoa!" once. He played the redneck wife beater to a tee, was downright scary... I enjoyed his performance in this more than I have in the other 10 terrible films he's made over the last ten years. Here, I'll count them.

The Watcher, The Replacements, The Devil's Advocate, Feeling Minnesota, Chain Reaction, A Walk in the Clouds, Johnny Mnemonic, Speed (shiver), Little Buddha, Much Ado About Nothing, Dracula (he should have been shot for that roll). That was 11. I had to get Dracula in there, that was for shit and he'll never live that one down. Probably his greatest rolls were in My Own Private Idaho and The Matrix. Let's hope that parts II and III live up to part I.

Giovanni Ribisi was fantastic. I've loved his work from That Thing You Do! to Lost Highway to Saving Private Ryan. He's charismatic, has a wonderful energy about him in this film... he comes off completely believable as his character, Buddy Cole. Definitely someone to watch.

Greg Kinnear and Hilary Swank I could have done without. Kinnear was great in As Good As It Gets. He was very good in Mystery Men as the cocky Captain Amazing... he should have been shot for his roll in Dear God... so, I don't know.

Swank... I don't know, man. I did not see Boys Don't Cry for personal reasons, so I won't put her down and out as an actress. She portrayed white trash pretty well, but she was primarily forced into the background due to Blanchett's presence.

J.K. Simmons rocks the house. He kicks ass in HBO's Oz, he was great in Raimi's For Love of the Game, and he is going to kick all kinds of ass as J. Jonah Jameson in the upcoming Spider-Man movie, also by Raimi, which will... well, it will be the pinnacle comic-to-film movie, more than X-Men ever was or will be.

Too many producers on this film. 9 of them, from executive to co-producer. Raimi must have gotten an ulcer because of all these yahoo's. I don't think they added anything to this film, in fact they probably took away from it. "I want my girlfriend in the film..." or what-have-you. They were all men, I'm sure it happened at least once.

I love Christopher Young's music. Ever since his Hellraiser score, I've loved his work. This music is just as creepy, with an equally creepy southern feel to it. He's been doing scores for a number of well made films ever since 1980. He keeps getting better and better.

I will mention Jamie Anderson as the cinematographer. Well done work. Working for Raimi must be a dream, his work is so precise and specific. His previous works include Small Soldiers, Grosse Point Blank (which I loved), The Juror... and there is a huge gap in the 1980's when he did no DPing, where he played Assistant Camera and Camera Operator on some great films. Ferris Bueller, The Best of Times, Harry and the Henderson's, and Tucker: The Man and His Dream. A very strange career.

The movie is worth seeing. For me, it's worth owning. I can always learn from Raimi's choice of shots, his angles, his editing choices... he's one of the most influential filmmakers of the last 15 years. People will shoot me down for that statement, but anyone who's enjoyed the Evil Dead series will agree that a cult hero is not only in the making... but future films will just blow us away.

J.P.