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Technical Information
Studio: Artisan
Home Entertainment
Year of Theatrical Release: 2001
Disc Format: 1
single side, single layer
Image Format: Full
Frame
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Region Encoding: 1
Sound Format: Dolby
Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 (pro logic)
Running Time: 90
minutes
Director: Sean
Wilson
Stars: William
Van Nolen, Peter Quartaroli, Sam McBride, Joy Garner
MPAA Rating: R
Disc Supplements:
- Commentary track by writer, director Sean Wilson
- Music video
- Trailers
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It's my understanding that Sean Wilson's Down
Time is at least partly autobiographical, proof that not all
in life is interesting or worth filming.
The film makes a poor choice for its main
character, Slim (William Van Nolen). He is an unsympathetic
criminal who gets busted when a drug deal goes bad. He finds
himself in county jail, awaiting transfer to prison.
While in jail and later in prison, Slim sits
around and plays cards. Slim plays a lot of cards. It may be
the reality of prison life that there is little else to do,
but 90 minutes of card games doesn't make for much dramatic
impact. Granted, we do get a few flashback scenes and a couple
of moments of violence early on, but for the most part this
film is all talk and little substance.
Slim narrates the film, continually telling
us how bad things got for him in prison, but nothing really
happens to him. Even an incident involving smuggled in drugs
leaves Slim unscathed and seemingly in no danger whatsoever.
In fact, the greatest threat to Slim seems to be whether or
not he will die of boredom. I wondered if I would share that
fate.
The prison scenes may look familiar to some
viewers. Apparently the filmmakers were granted permission to
shoot in Alcatraz. On the one hand, this lends a nice atmosphere,
but on the other, the famous set is somewhat distracting for
anyone who recognizes it.
All of the actors inhabit their scenes with
the flat woodenness of people who have never been in front of
a camera and really aren't sure they want to be in front of
it now. Meanwhile, the direction and production values are on
the level of a first-time student film. Independent films can
sometimes give us gems. In this case, we're scraping the bottom
of the barrel.
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top |
The film is presented full frame.
It appears to have been filmed on video and therefore sufferes in
terms of resolution and clarity. Colors are harsh and oversaturated.
The contrast is poor and black levels and shadow details are muddy.
To make matters even worse, the film suffers from some compression
artifacts.
:::back to top |
The audio is billed as Dolby Digital
5.1, but don't expect much. It sounds like a mono track. The dynamic
range is very limited, with tin-can sounding dialogue and poor bass
response.
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There are a couple of extra features
on this disc, with the main one being a feature length commentary
track by director, producer, writer Sean Wilson. Most commentary
tracks are by seasoned veterans in the film industry. Given that,
it's interesting to hear thoughts from someone fairly new to the
business. Unfortunately for the film, Wilson does a much better
job of developing his characters and situations in the commentary
than he does through actual storytelling.
Also included is a music video and
some sneak peeks at other low-budget films. The audio in the music
video is very unbalanced with the rest of the disc. Keep in mind
that you may want to turn down the volume a bit before selecting
to play it.
:::back to top |
I can't really say that I enjoyed this film.
For the most part, there was just too little going on for it to
be interesting and I'm not referring just to the absence of action.
Character development and dramatic tension was also lacking. The
effort is there, but it just work. The bottom line is simply that
this film completely failed to grab me emotionally. It left me with
the thought of, who cares?
:::back to top |
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| The film contains drug
use, foul language and violence. It is not appropriate for any of
the kids. |
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| -- By Robert Wurth. Copyright
© 2003. |
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