REVIEWS

An interesting tale

FILM: The Haunting in Connecticut 

CAST: Chad Michael Murray, Abigail Spencer, Katee Sackhoff,Emily Alyn Lind, Cicely Tyson

DIRECTION: Tom Elkins

The original Haunting in Connecticut was released in 2009 and saw moderate box office success. The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, is its sequel.

A young family moves into a rural Georgia home situated on the old Underground Railroad, and they experience true terror when the ghosts of the past refuse to rest in peace.

Andy (Chad Michael Murray) and his wife Lisa (Abigail Spencer) thought they had found the perfect place to raise their young daughter Heidi. But almost immediately after settling into their quaint, historic home, Heidi experiences a series of troubling supernatural encounters. Later, when Lisa’s easygoing sister Joyce (Katee Sackhoff) shows up for a visit, the restless spirits inhabiting the house begin to make their presence known.

Aside from being a family ghost story, Ghosts of Georgia has no similarity to the original film. The plot may not entirely hold water, but it’s an interesting tale that delivers on what it promises: creepy gothic horror.

The performances are good all around, as well. Spencer and Sackhoff take the lead and are believably fun as sisters that share a spiritual gift but deal with it differently and the young Lind is quite fine for a child actor. 

It’s a ghost story with a lot of atmosphere but not a lot of violence. What violence is there is short and effective without being particularly gruesome and while also serving the story. — DVD Verdict

Man versus beast

FILM: D4

CAST: “Big” Mike Ulm, Jennifer McReynolds, Eric Berner

DIRECTION: Darrin Dickerson

D4 begins with the mysterious ex-military mercenary Sloan (Eric Berner) being contracted by an equally mysterious, wealthy doctor to perform a search and rescue mission for her kidnapped son. Sloan enlists a special team of fellow mercenaries, consisting of Snipe (Jaimee Gray Simon), Brocker (Clay Brocker), Cutter (Jeff Hime), and Smoke (Darrin Dickerson, who also wrote, edited and directed D4), to go deep in the woods to the infamous abandoned government facility known as D4.

The team breaks in; little knowing what resides behind the heavily electrified fences. With that, a thought-to-be quick search and rescue mission becomes a hellish nightmare as the team fights for their lives against a brutish beast of a man that is completely unstoppable.

At first glance, D4 may seem like one of those Predator-inspired sci-fi yarns where man must fight beast in the wilds of nature, when in fact it offers something different in the form of a subplot involving epilepsy, a theme which inspired Dickerson (whose own son suffers from this condition) to make D4.

The subplot has desperate grandfather Dalton (Ted LeGarde) frantically trying to help his epileptic grandson find medication through a specialist. The specialist’s experimental drugs only worsen the grandson’s condition until they take the child away, leaving Dalton to look like a confused madman. His story soon connects with the initial plot as he joins the mercenaries in his own search and rescue mission.

D4 takes a pretty standard story, mixes it with a different side plotline, and even manages to throw in a couple of twists and turns along the way. - WS

Hunt for artifacts

FILM: Chinese Zodiac

CAST: Jackie Chan, Qi Shu, Xingtong Yao

DIRECTION: Jackie Chan

ackie Chan reprises his role of treasure hunter Asian Hawk from Armour of God (1987) in Chinese Zodiac. He is looking for for 12 bronze heads of the Chinese Zodiac looted from China, 150 years ago, which now lie in different places in different parts of the world.

Hired by business tycoon and antique- Lawrence Morgan (Oliver Platt), Hawk (taking on the pseudonym JC here) travels all over the world on his mission. In between, he collects a motley group of accomplices and opponents globally. There is a French heiress, (Laura Weissbecker), a Chinese archeology student (Yao Xingtong), JC’s own Chinese tech team – Simon (Kwone), Bonnie (Zhang) and David (Liao Fan), a Russian army, a band of pirates and JC’s direct rival Vulture (Alaa Safi), who is looking for the heads for himself.

While, an ensemble, multi-lingual cast possibly brings colour and largesse to a project, here it depletes into some sort of a circus. Action-wise, the film is slick and strong. - KA

(DVD courtesy: Kings Electronics, Doha)

Tense night

FILM: Pawn

CAST: Max Beesley, Jonathan Bennett, Michael Chiklis

DIRECTION: David A Armstrong

Dawn is an acceptable mystery-thriller. Shortly before midnight, police sergeant Will Thompkins (Forest Whitaker) grabs a cup of coffee from his favourite 24-hour diner, Be Brite. Everyone there, from the staff to the patrons, is acting erratically, to Thompkins’ concern. He soon learns that everyone is on edge because the diner is in the midst of an armed robbery, being conducted by a Brit named Derrick (Chiklis, adopting and relishing a Cockney accent) and his two associates.

The crime scene, which is not entirely what it seems, soon develops into a hostage situation. That attracts veteran negotiator Jeff Porter (rapper Common) as well as Lt Barnes (Marton Csokas), a cop with much personally invested in this job. Those inside the diner include Nick Davenport (Sean Faris, a graduate of the Tom Cruise school of acting), a fresh-out-of-jail reformed car thief, and his waitress friend Bonnie (Jessica Szohr), who are at various points asked to serve as Derrick’s mouthpiece. Meanwhile, Nick’s wife, the pregnant Amanda (Nikki Reed) is taken into custody by an unnamed man (Ray Liotta) posing as a police official.

The MacGuffin at the centre of the heist is an external hard drive belonging to the diner’s mobster owner Yuri Mikhalev (Ronald Guttman) and believing to hold severely incriminating evidence.

The directing debut of longtime cinematographer David A Armstrong (whose credits include the first six Saw movies), Pawn utilises a slightly nonlinear presentation that makes you anticipate more meaningful twists than it delivers.

It seems downright Rashomonic early on, as we see the unsettling scene from a few different perspectives, with just a smidge of backstory. Such flourishes soon fade in favour of a fairly straightforward, tense film spending time both inside and outside the diner.

The acting from a mix of undiscerning veterans and unfamiliar hopefuls is hit and miss, with Chiklis providing the biggest screen presence.- WS

(DVDs courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha)