Newsies (Collector's Edition)
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Actor: Christian Bale, David Moscow, Gabriel Damon, Luke Edwards, Max CasellaBrand: Buena Vista Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 121 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-01-15
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Walt Disney Video
DVD Reviews of Newsies (Collector's Edition)
DVD Review: A really good script is how you sell movies
Summary: 2 Stars
I wanted to love this movie. Beyond that, I wanted it to be an instant classic, albeit thirteen years after it's initial release.
In 1996 I was a sheet music seller. Through 2003, that vocation supported my family. In that time, I must have sold more copies of the songbook, "Newsies", than any other collection on the shelves. I've oft wondered why but was never compelled to actually watch the film.
I'm not sure why. Max Casella, (Racetrack) second banana to Doogie Howser was immediately recognizable. A barely legal Christian Bale, who I thought was an utterly brilliant 'one shot wonder' in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" was certainly a draw.
So, what did it take to turn the proverbial corner and actually watch this film? Of all things, the reincarnation of the original vision of Frank Miller's, "Batman".
How utterly shallow of me. Or, am I?
Watching a 90s musical based on the performance of an actor years later is contrived at best though I'm glad I did. However, and here comes the rub...I did not like this picture.
This is a film about potential. It would be a fascinating exercise to have a round table discussion with the top "A"-list directors of today tossing about ideas how to tell this story. Imagine: Lucas, Cameron, Howard, Jackson, Coppola, Burton, Scott, all around a storyboard filled wall arguing how to make this script compelling. What an opportunity!
So, where does the execution fall flat? Certainly not the treatment itself. What a great premise: "Oppressed newsboys seek justice by way of righteous indignation in the late 19th century." There could have been a trailer with nothing but those very words scrawled across the screen with dramatic music punching a deep baritone's voiceover and that would have gotten my attention.
But in 1991 the idea was not only incubated, but boiled to the point where there was no flavor left. Character development was neutered. Blasphemy? Perhaps, especially if a thirteen year-old girl happens to be reading this.
I must give due credit to Alan Menkin for a fabulous score. I'm not savvy enough to know who is responsible for allowing the underscore to dominate the performances. The actors' interpretations of the script were nearly always completely derailed by a swell of strings or a thrum of percussion. The soundtrack, even in a musical, should support the story, not overwhelm it.
This is no more tragic than when two brilliant actors are on a small soundstage opposite each other. Namely, Robert Duvall and Christian Bale. These two appear briefly together in the third act of the film in a wonderfully contentious moment, nearly ruined by abrasive music. Silence, would have been golden.
As I do, most people universally praise Duvall's presence in film, and it is no less palpable in Newsies. Unlike some reviewers, I thought his performance lent credibility to the film and a dramatic base from which to work. The filmmakers did not exploit this advantage. With the benefit of hindsight, nor did they Christian Bale.
Here is an actor who has by and large flown completely under the radar of the mass public, save a brief, and brilliant shining moment as a thirteen year-old actor five years prior. Not until many years later do I come to realize how bred in him is his acting prowess. There is no scared little boy here, no brooding hell-bent on vengeance soon-to-be hero. Only a loose protagonist with a threadbare script with which he must attempt near miracles.
Had I but seen this film when it was released, perhaps I would have seen this spark at the time. No longer will I so readily dismiss a child actor's performance (as I did again with Anna Paquin after her turn in "The Piano").
I'm certainly preaching to the choir now as I say that Bale has a prodigious gift whom amongst a small cache of actors we will be seeing for many years to come.
There are other annoyances:
Exactly what accent is Duvall supposed to have? Clearly some of his dialogue was looped but someone forgot to tell him where the border between Germany and Texas is.
The orchestra and choral mix sound as though they're in an acoustically padded box. This may be more a complaint about the final mixing technique of the day, but neither Beauty and the Beast nor Aladdin suffer from this stifling lack of musical life.
The choreography is sometimes derivative. Watch the Lament (Lonesome Polecat) or Raising the Barn numbers from "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and see what I mean.
Lastly, the editing. Oh, how I long for those days when talented dancers performed in front of a locked down camera and we were in complete awe of the performance. As with so many movies made in the last two decades, the more the camera becomes free, the less we are able to see the performance. Editing should not draw attention to itself. If it does, as is so here, then there are problems with either the performances or with how the film was shot.
All that said, Newsies has an upbeat score, an underdog theme, and really cute boys, which will always make it a five-star hit...if but with a demographic that won't be able to vote for awhile.
Description of Newsies (Collector's Edition)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 04/08/2003 Run time: 81 minutes Rating: PgBestsellers in DVD
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