Dead Again

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DVD details

Actor: Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh, Patrick Doyle, Raymond Cruz, Richard Easton (II)
Brand: Paramount
Primary Contributor: Thompson, Emma
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 107 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-06-27
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount

DVD Reviews of Dead Again

DVD Review: Life After Love, Love After Death
Summary: 4 Stars

Kenneth Branagh's film Dead Again is a superbly crafted thriller that cleverly combines film noir, supernatural suspense, melodrama, and romance. Branagh (Henry V) pulls double duty, both directing and starring in this stylish update of the mystery genre. The film stars Branagh and his wife Emma Thompson in dual-roles, as well as featuring an impressive supporting cast including Andy Garcia, Derek Jacobi, Hanna Schygulla, Wayne Knight, and Robin Williams.
The film utilizes all of the trappings of a Hitchcock picture, while remaining completely original and contemporary. Though at times pretentious and over the top, Dead Again is a welcome return to a genre that in recent years has been dormant and waiting to be resurrected.

When L.A. private investigator Mike Church is asked to help an emotionally troubled amnesiac woman discover her identity, he is plunged into a mystery that will forever alter both of their lives. After an antiques dealer hypnotizes the woman, they trace her troubles to a murder in the past. In 1948 famous opera composer Roman Strauss was blamed for the murder of his wife, Margaret. Could the answer to this woman's troubles lie in a past life experience. As Mike and the woman learn more about Roman and Margaret, they find themselves falling in love. But then it seems possible that Margaret's killer may still be alive and looking to kill again. Soon Mike discovers the truth, but is it too late to stop history from repeating itself?

The film features an appropriately operatic finale, which is heightened by the dramatic musical score, composed by Patrick Doyle.
Contrived, convoluted, and manipulative, Dead Again received mixed reviews mainly because some critics failed to understand the more humorous elements of the plot. The film's screenplay was written by Scott Frank, who imbues the story with both ironic humor and melodramatic romance. Yet this is part of the film's overall charm. Both Branagh and Scott are clearly having fun with the genre, referencing filmmakers like Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock.
In the end, Dead Again is an effective thriller that will have audiences screaming and laughing one minute, gasping the next, and finally catching their breath after the climax.

Also recommended:
Rebecca
Spellbound
Dark Passage
Vertigo
Psycho
Eyes of Laura Mars
Somewhere in Time
Ghost
The Fisher King

DVD Review: Suspenseful Love Story, one of my favorites
Summary: 5 Stars

I had never heard of this movie until last week. I love it! It is now one of my favorite movies. I will definitely watch it again. Kenneth is great. My husband is a fan of his, but not of love stories. My husband thinks his performance is excellent! I am a big fan of Emma Thompson and she is great as usual. If you like suspense mixed with love, this is for you. If you like Gaslight with Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, then you will like Dead Again.

DVD Review: Stylish, Satisfying Suspense
Summary: 4 Stars

Accomplished British actors Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson (his wife at the time this film was made), the always fascinating Derek Jacobi, and in supporting roles, Andy Garcia, German actress Hanna Schygulla, and Robin Williams, round out a stellar cast that, by itself, would make this film worth your time. They give this intriguing story of the turn of karmic wheels energy and charm. I must say that I find the review featured on Amazon by "The New Yorker" to be incomprehensible and so wide of the mark that the magazine might have been reviewing a different film. When I saw this film in New York City, audiences applauded enthusiastically at the end.

In addition to its terrific cast, "Dead Again" is well-written, fast-paced, and stylishly produced - it was also directed by its star, Branagh. It weaves together two stories of what at first seems like two distinct pairs of lovers: foreign-born conductor Roman Strauss and his pianist-wife Margaret in the post-war 1940s, and Los Angeles private investigator Mike Church and an amnesiac who cannot remember who she is in the 1990s. Both pairs of lovers are played by Branagh and Thompson. As Church and the amnesiac try to figure out why she cannot remember who she is, and why she is terrified of scissors, they keep bumping up against the forty-year mystery of Margaret's murder, for which Roman was convicted and executed. Also interested in untangling the increasingly apparent overlap between the past and the present are a slightly sinister antiques dealer with a talent for hypnosis (Jacobi), and journalist Andy Garcia, now an ancient wreck in a nursing home, who once knew both Roman and Margaret. Robin Williams makes the most of a small role as an eccentric ex-psychiatrist (unfrocked for sleeping with one of his patients) now working as a stockboy for a supermarket, whose experiences with a former patient begin to convince the doubting Church that the past may indeed be seeping into the present.

The conclusion of the film, with its unexpected twist, drew exclamations from the audience I saw this film with. The overlapping stories are woven tightly together, there isn't a boring moment in the movie, the characters are all sharply drawn, and the catchy, propulsive score is by Patrick Doyle (who also did fine scores for Branagh's "Henry V", for "Indochine", and the remake of "The End of the Affair"). The opinion of the venerable "The New Yorker" notwithstanding (perhaps it's a bit too venerable to see beyond its snobbist pseudo-intellectualism), this is an enjoyable and well-constructed suspense film.

DVD Review: Great Mystery Movie!
Summary: 5 Stars

I am a huge fan of anything by Kenneth Branagh (another good one to see is: 'How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog')so when I saw this movie, I of course gave it a shot. This movie has a great twist and is beautifully acted. Both Emma & Kenneth do a wonderful job of American accents. If you like the mystery genre this is one you must see!

DVD Review: Dead Again - Dead Silly
Summary: 1 Stars

I'm somewhat of a Branagh and Thompson fan but I'm surprised anyone could possibly enjoy this silly film. I don't know whatever came over Branagh and Thompson to partake. Jacobi, as a dodgy antique dealer who hypnotizes people was bad enough but, when he took his subjects into past lives to find their antiques, it just got ridiculous.

Very little that the main actors did was convincing and much of it was irrelevant and confusing to the plot. The switching of accents was as farcical as it was incompetent - ditto, the constant flash backs in black and white.

If the movie, and the story, were consistently awful, the finale excelled. Even "Pirates of the Caribbean" tried to give rationale to characters being fatally shot, and stabbed, but still fighting on. Was it only the crazed operatic accompaniment in "Dead Again" that finally caused them to be all "Dead Again?" For how long one asked?

Emma Thompson, whose portrayal of a dying cancer victim in "Wit" was so poignantly beautiful, must be deeply embarrassed when she thinks back on this movie. She certainly wouldn't want to watch it a second time - nor would I - the first was bad enough.

Description of Dead Again

A los angeles gumshoe plunges into a world of unimaginable mystery as he uncovers the past-life experience of a beautiful amnesia victim. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/11/2006 Starring: Kenneth Branagh Emma Thompson Run time: 107 minutes Rating: R Director: Kenneth Branagh

British thespian and sophomore director Kenneth Branagh follows up his adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V with this abrupt change of pace, a slick, stylish thriller evocative of Hitchcock, classic film noir, and gothic shockers. Sporting an exaggerated American accent, Branagh stars as L.A. private eye Mike Church, a hard-boiled but softhearted detective who takes on the case of a mysterious amnesiac (Branagh's then-real-life wife, Emma Thompson). With the help of an offbeat furniture dealer and part-time hypnotist (Derek Jacobi), Grace (as Mike has named her) dredges up her hidden memories. Little do they realize that her recollections are of a past life in L.A.'s recent history, and as she recounts the details of a famous marriage that ended with a notorious murder (played out as black-and-white flashbacks starring Branagh and Thompson), events of the present begin to mirror the past, as if fate were pulling the two into fatal replay of history. Branagh's flashy, flourished direction echoes with an array of '40s and '50s classics and near classics (most notably Hitchcock's Rebecca and Spellbound) and drives the story with an edgy urgency, all the better to distract from some of the sillier elements of the plot. But while this film may not make literal sense in the harsh light of day, in the twilit, shadowy world of classic Hollywood this slyly inventive thriller is a bravura bit of old-fashioned entertainment, done up with modern flair. --Sean Axmaker

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