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First Snow
R4 - Australia - Warner Home Video Review written by and copyright: Stevie McCleary & Noor Razzak (21st March 2009). |
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The Film
 No more roads. No more tomorrows. Not much time left. "First Snow" (2006) follows the story of a man who learns his days are numbered. Or more specifically, he has at least until the first snow fall. Why he doesn’t then just move to Florida like he suggests to the psychic is anybody’s guess…well, not really. None of us can escape destiny, can we? And therein begins the lesson…about how we should live our lives. Instead of only truly living them when they are nearing their end. Guy Pearce gives us a great performance as Jimmy Starks, a salesman who is right on that line where you want to really dislike him for the way he is, but you just can’t do it. And that is not an easy line to traverse yet Pearce does it seemingly with ease, a testament to his underrated ability. And the other great thing is that he’d not left alone in the woods here; the rest of the cast are just perfect at what they do. Piper Perabo doesn’t get much screentime as his girlfriend but she makes the most of it. She gets across everything that is needed for her role and that is a fine thing. The brilliant (and I’ll also always claim underrated as well) William Fichtner plays the role of his best friend/business partner Ed. And again it is entertaining work from him as well. J.K. Simmons continues the trend and gives a great nuanced performance as the psychic that tells Starks his time is up, and Rick Gonzalez plays Andy Lopez, one of Starks’ other salesmen partners that he lets down. Nice little role for him too. Notice how this is going? The whole cast brought everything they needed to for this film and it comes off perfectly. Nothing I love better than seeing a cast that works flawlessly together – and this is one of those cases. So, for that, they get a round of applause from me. Nice work on the DVD cover too, which features almost all of them lined up. Hard to pass up a film with that ensemble displayed on the front. Tone-wise the film is quite grabbing – the middle of the film really gets into Starks’ paranoia and follows the Kubler Ross model for the five stages of grief – masterfully portrayed here. And the nice thing about the way it is handled, it is relatable. You can see and often agree with the way he acts, and then reacts, to the danger ahead of him. Indeed – there is little to not like about the way the film plays out. The hardest part of any film is the final act though and it is fair to say it stumbles a bit here, and doesn’t hit all the marks that it should have. But that is not a harsh criticism, for in this day and age most movies have the same issue. And often more so. In this situation I think it was simply the fact that the movie had drawn me in quite well and I think I may have raised my own expectations too high because of it. Which feels like a weird thing to say, but after reflecting for a couple days is how I feel about it. It’s easy to have films that run the gambit of a tense mystery thriller blow up in your face and let you down, so that fear grips first. Then if the film is proving itself you suddenly get a bit too enthused. The themes raised by the film ride heavily through the whole piece; the nature that if there was a destiny for everyone, we couldn’t avoid it. In fact we’d only cause ourselves to race towards it even faster if we knew. But the other thing about human nature, that obviously fascinated the writers as well, is that we only truly start living when the fear of the end is upon us. That’s when most of us truly appreciate life. And others never get a chance to settle our debts and sort things out – the end is never signposted. Jimmy Starks gets his chance, a chance that few get. Seeing what he does with it is an interesting and compelling journey. You should take it too. All in all, "First Snow" does exactly what it sets out to achieve, and for that it is to be commended.
Video
This film is presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, this image is not the original ratio of the film. The film is supposed to be in 2.35:1 widescreen but this transfer from Warner Brothers seems open-matted at the top and bottom revealing more of the image. The intended ratio is totally ignored here and that's enough to warrant to total fail on the transfer regardless of how clear and good it looks. The image is crisp and sharp, colours are well represented especially skin tones. There's little grain and overall the image is free from dirt, specks and compression related problems. It's a shame the film is not in its original ratio, otherwise I would have graded this much higher.
Audio
There's a single English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround track, the packaging includes a DTS logo on the back, but there is no DTS track to be found on this disc. Someone at Warner Brothers isn't doing there job as this isn't the first mistake I've spotted on their packaging. This could seriously mislead consumers expecting a DTS track (which is considerably better than standard Dolby Digital audio tracks). Moving on, the audio is perfectly fine and does a serviceable job at presenting this film's mix. Dialogue is clear and distortion free, there's some well mixed ambient surrounds that add towards the overall immersiveness of the track. I found that depth was lacking and it's not an entirely aggressive track but certainly does the trick. There are no optional subtitles either.
Extras
The only extra we've got here is the fil's original theatrical trailer which runs for 2 minutes 20 seconds.
Overall
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