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Dom Robinson reviews

Cruel Intentions

What You Can't Have, You Can't Resist

Distributed by

Columbia TriStar

Cat.no: CDR 98039
Cert: 15
Running time: 94 minutes
Year: 1999
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 28 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English, French
Subtitles: 17 different languages available
Widescreen: 1.85:1
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 5
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, US Theatrical trailer, Filmographies, Director/Producer Commentary, 5 Deleted Scenes, 2 Music Videos, Behind-the-Scenes Featurette

Director:

Roger Kumble

Producers:

Neal H. Moritz

Screenplay:

Roger Kumble

Music:

Edward Shearmur

Cast:

Kathryn Merteuil: Sarah Michelle Gellar

High Stakes, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, Simply Irresistible, TV: All My Children, Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sebastian Valmont: Ryan Phillippe

54, Homegrown, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Little Boy Blue, Nowhere, Playing By Heart, White Squall

Annette Hargrove: Reese Witherspoon

Best Laid Plans, Election, A Far Off Place, Fear, Freeway, Jack the Bear, The Man in the Moon, Overnight Delivery, Pleasantville, SFW, Solomon's Choice, Twilight

Marci Greenbaum: Tara Reid

American Pie, The Big Lebowski

Helen Rosemond: Louise Fletcher

Blue Steel, Brainstorm, Breast Men, Exorcist 2: The Heretic, Firestarter, Flowers in the Attic, High School High, Love Kills, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Stepford Husbands, Virtuosity

Cruel Intentions is a film set in the world of the rich and the beautiful... and there's few more rich and beautiful in the world of film than Sarah Michelle Gellar, who plays Kathryn Merteuil. She has a serial womaniser of a step-brother, Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe) who is looking for a new challenge instead of a continuous stream of "insipid Manhattan debutantes"

At the same time, Kathryn is having a different dilemma of the heart. Her last boyfriend was a "Flash Harry" who fell for a dowdy friend of hers, Cecile Caldwell (Selma Blair) and to get her own back, she wants to set her stepsibling on her. She can't attack her ex, Court Reynolds (Charlie O'Connell), directly as that'll gain her negative publicity and "Everybody loves me and I intend to keep it that way". However, he has a reputation to uphold and is far more interested in the conquest to pop the cherry of his headmaster's daughter, Annette Hargrove (Reese Witherspoon), before she even starts school.

Kathryn makes a bet which Sebastian accepts: If she wins and he is unable to find the key to Annette's chastity belt, she gets to keep his 1956 vintage Jaguar Roadster. If he succeeds, his prize is the one thing she claims he's been after since their parents got married, which she coolly describes,

"In English, I'll fuck your brains out !"

Cruel Intentions is an update on Dangerous Liaisons for the brat-pack market. The two leads have an excellent chemistry between them, Phillippe coming across as America's answer to Jude Law, but the rest of the actors could be interchanged with just about anyone and there's too short an appearance for American Pie babe Tara Reid as the daughter of Sebastian's shrink, played by Swoosie Kurtz.

movie pic

Basically instinctive.

The picture is artifact-free, but has a slight level of grain that seems to mar a number of Columbia DVDs. It doesn't make it completely unwatchable, but a little more effort could have improved matters greatly. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 ratio and is enhanced for 16:9 widescreen televisions - thus allowing for 33% higher resolution. The average bitrate is a very good 7.25Mb/s, often peaking above 9Mb/s.

The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and won't blow your speakers, but mixes a pleasant and subtle score with pop tunes from The Cardigans, Fatboy Slim, The Verve, Skunk Anansie, Craig Armstrong & Elizabeth Fraser, plus Marcy Playground's Comin' Up From Behind and Placebo's Every You Every Me, for which the music promos are included in the extras section.

Extras :

Chapters/Trailer :

There are 28 chapters, like most Columbia releases, spread throughout the 94-minute running time, which covers most of the major scenes, the last one bringing together finale and the end credits. The original US theatrical trailer is also included.

Languages/Subtitles :

Dolby Digital 5.1 in English and French, plus subtitles in SEVENTEEN languages : English, French, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian and Dutch.

And there's more... :

Filmographies and biographies are available for the director Roger Kumble and the four young principal cast members, a Behind-the-scenes six-minute featurette is more like an extended trailer narrated by a man with a deep voice, but not THAT man and there's an audio commentary track from the director and producer Neal H. Moritz as well as several other members of the crew.

5 Deleted scenes are included, most of which are worth a look but Kathryn manipulates Ronald is a short one that should have been left in as he doesn't get that much to do. Finally there are the two aforementioned pop videos. Subtitles are available for these extras, but, bizarrely, only in French and Dutch (!)

Menu :

The menu is static and silent with a snapshot of the younger members of the cast, but it has a classy and elegant look that captures the feel of the film.

movie pic

< (Director): "No, no, NO! Learn your lines OFF-camera!"

Overall, this film starts off with promise and it's interesting to watch the twists and turns of the script as the truth is told once too often, everyone sleeps with everyone else and certain characters get their comeuppance, but the overall result is unsatisfying.

There are a lot of extras to the disc as well, but there aren't that many that you'll go back to time and again and in comparison to the US release, it's missing an extra deleted scene, production notes and another featurette, "Creative Intentions: Finding a Visual Style". Definitely a case of rent-before-you-buy, particularly if you haven't seen the film before.

FILM	 		: ***
PICTURE QUALITY		: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: ***½
-------------------------------
OVERALL			: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

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