Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil 

Starring:

John Cusack

149min

Kevin Spacey

Jack Thompson

1997

 

Screenplay:

John Lee Hancock

Drama

 

Director:

Clint Eastwood

Colour

 

DVD Details

Region

2

Studio:

Warner Brothers

 

Format

Single Sided, Dual Layer

Subtitles

English

 

English Closed Captions

Aspect ratio

16:9

Italian Closed Captions

 

French / Dutch / Italian

Anamorphic

Yes

Spanish / Portugese

 

Arabic

Soundtracks

Dolby Digital 5.1

French Dolby Digital 5.1

Extra Features

Animated Menus

Italian Dolby Digital 5.1

Production notes

Biographies

Case type

Cardboard

 

MovieUK.com review by Guy Rowland

The DVD * * * 1/2

The Movie *

Another excellent transfer from Warners, this is a pin sharp portrait of life in Georgia. Upon close scruitiny, there is a bit of grain (especially in the darker scenes) but artifacts are very minimal and the overall effect is superb. The layer change is tidy enough, at around 89 minutes.

The sound is nothing to get terribly excited about, although a lot of actual location dialogue was used, which makes a change. Occasionally the assosciated room ambiance is a little distracting, but otherwise the dub is good.

The menu is a loop of part of the opening sequence, and jolly nice it is too - acapella vocal and shots of the graveyard. Menus take you to copious amounts of notes on the cast and production, including the process of adapting the best seller to screen.

Unfortunately, an accompanying documentary was to have been on this disc, but it dropped off somewhere mid-Atlantic. Still, if this is a film that does it for you, then the DVD will as well.

Almost unbelievably tedious adaption of John Berendt's best selling novel regarding a rich socialite (Spacey) who murders his white trash gay lover. A journo covering one of his parties for Home and Country magazine drops the article in favour for staying on and seeing how things all pan out, with a view to writing a book.

"Maybe you will get a book out of this", Spacey ponders. "But you won't get a film" we all cry. Director Clint's daughter slips into a redundant charcter, the ever reliable Spacey and Cusack are wasted, and as the story creaks and groans its weary way towards the high excitement of a court case, you'll be breaking out the sellotape to keep the eyelids open. Some minor odball characters try to chivvy some interest, but it's all for nothing. At least 2 1/2 hours too long.