The Big White
by Mark Mylod
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DVD details
Actor: Giovanni Ribisi, Holly Hunter, Robin Williams, Tim Blake Nelson, Woody HarrelsonDirector: Mark Mylod
Brand: PLATINUM DISC LLC
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 105 minutes
Published: 2006-06-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-06-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 44469
Studio: Echo Bridge Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Outstanding performances are delivered by an all-star cast in this quirky black comedy centered on Paul Barnell (Robin Williams), a down on his luck Alaska travel agent who's on the brink of bankruptcy and whose beloved wife, Margaret (Holly Hunter), is on the brink of insanity. So what's a nice guy with good intentions but bad business sense to do? The answer lies frozen in a dumpster outside of
DVD Reviews of The Big White
DVD Review: As the tagline says, "When you need somebody, anybody will do."
Summary: 4 Stars
I have seen enough Robin Williams films in the past several years where I know the movie night have been made if he had not signed on to do it, but his performance did not really work in the film. However, the Robin Williams that shows up for "The Big White" has managed to strip things down another level, so that he is actually the eye of the hurricane in this 2005 black comedy that lets the rest of the cast go off the deep end. The rest is not great, but pretty good for a black comedy, a genre that has seen more misfires than hits in the last couple of decades.
Williams is Paul Barnell, who runs a travel agency in the frozen wasteland that is Alaska (at least in this film; not because it is true, but because it makes the title of the film work). Paul is strapped for cash and has a wife, Margaret (Holly Hunter), who has problems. She is convinced that she has developed Tourettes, but that would appear to be one thing she does not have. It has been five years since Paul's brother Raymond disappeared, and since he has a $1 million life policy out on his brother, a criminal type for whom a bad ending would have been predictable, and since he needs the money, he talks to the insurance company about being able to collect. But he is told by Ted (Giovanni Ribisi), the insurance investigator, that in Alaska when there is no body you have to wait seven years and then the company gets to hem and haw for another year. So it looks like Paul is about at the end of his rope.
Then he takes some trash out to the dumpster behind his business and lo, there is a frozen corpse just laying there. After he gets over the initial shock, the wheels starting turning in Paul's mind and he takes the corpse home, stashes it in the fridge in the garage, and plots to pass the body off as that of his brother. This becomes a bit more difficult than Paul thinks, but the local cops and coroner buy it, so things are going good. But Ted, who wants to get promoted out of Alaska and back to the real world, is suspicious. However, this might be the least of Paul's problems because the corpse was dumped there by a couple of low level thugs, Gary (Tim Blake Nelson) and Jimbo (W. Earl Brown), and their boss wants the body back. Plus, you know that in a movie like this no deed, good or bad, will go unpunished, so it is not surprising when Raymond (Woody Harrelson) himself shows up.
Because this is a black comedy it skates perilously close to a line. Hunter's character is the one that is in comic overdrive in this particular film, and Alison Lohman as Tiffany, the girl who is living with Ted and running a psychic friend operation out of his dinning room, seems like a throw away character but actually functions as the connection that will bring everybody together on a glacier for the final act to play out. I was worried that "The Big White" was going to turn too dark, but it does avoid that and I actually liked that we suddenly find everybody sitting around in a car taking a moment to collect their thoughts before talking. Plus the misplace efforts of Gary to avoid letting anybody trace their phone call to Paul tickled my funny bone.
I realize there is a tendency to compare "The Big White" to "Fargo," but I do not feel viewers are under an obligation to do so. Yes, both involve snow and quirky characters, but "Fargo" was about a desperate guy trying to scheme his way out of a mess of his own making and "The Big White" is the story of a guy who wants to take care of his wife and tries to take advantage of an opportunity that falls into his lap. That his brother shows up and his wife gets kidnapped are just bitter ironies here and there are also the attendant injuries being added by the people who beat up Paul. So there are enough significant differences between the two for me to judge director Mark Mylod by a standard he would not be able to meet. Most viewers will find themselves ahead of the game when they finish watching this one. Besides, we are getting to that part of the year where a world of snow constitutes an inviting world of relief away from the sweltering days to come.
Description of The Big White
TO REMEDY HIS FINANCIAL PROBLEMS, A TRAVEL AGENT HAS HIS EYE ON A FROZEN CORPSE, WHICH JUST HAPPENS TO BE SOUGHT AFTER BY TWO HITMEN.Bestsellers in DVD
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