Customer Reviews

Blood & Wine [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a beautifully filmed picture with a rich plethora of twists and turns to keep you guessing. It repeatedly questions your own morality through the use of several flawed protagonist who also double as the films antiheroes. Bob Rafelson paints breathtakingly colorful imagery on the screen and changes the mood of the scene through the use of color to great affect. Michael Caine, Jack Nicholson and Stephen Dorff give stellar performaces. But perhaps the most amazing thing about this movie is the dark subtext that lies beneath each spoken line. There are times when you can feel your heart sink from the bitterness of the unspoken words. Outstanding. Five stars.

I'm not a diehard fan of film noir movies, but this one appeals to me, largely because of the multi-dimensional characters, written with more insight and compassion than usually found in this genre. Even the most villainous character has an understandable reason for all-consuming greed; the rest exude depths of decency and honor when you least expect it. That makes it all worth watching; these are people worth watching and even rooting for. The main cast is uniformly magnificent... what a treat to see Caine and Nicholson play off each other so expertly, and Judy Davis is intelligent and stellar as always. Stephen Dorff continues to impress me with his "diamond-in-the-rough" surliness and Jennifer Lopez does better work here than I've seen before, adding extra likeableness to a plot that, on the surface, threatens to be more hard-boiled than it actually turns out to be. Although there are plenty of violent scenes, there's also just the right amount of vulnerability mixed in with the toughness, enough self-awareness and kindness mixed in with the hatred and selfishness. Great movie, great surprise!

Excellent performances by the entire cast make this film well above average. Honestly, I don't know why this film didn't succeed at the box office. It has everything! Great acting by Nicholson, Caine, Dorff & Davis. Treachery, double crossing, action... you name it, it's there. Judy Davis' car accident was done very realistically. Stephen Dorff holds his own against the 2 legends Nicholson & Caine. Where did the film go wrong? I mean, why wasn't it a hit? Can't figure it out.

Director Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson had a number of memorable collaborations in the 1970s (Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens) and worked once together during the 1980s (The Postman Always Rings Twice) and again during the 1990s (Man Trouble). Towards the end of `90s, they made a nasty little neo noir called Blood and Wine. Like Robert Towne, Rafelson is a survivor from the `70s still using his reputation from that decade to make modestly budgeted, character-driven movies - the kind that established his career in the first place.

This is Jack Nicholson in one of his less showier roles, as if hooking back up with his old friend brought the character actor back out in him. It's a meaty role that eschews the charismatic movie star roles that he does in films like As Good As It Gets (1997), for much darker material. Alex is driven by greed and it gradually consumes him and Nicholson does a good job of conveying the effect it has over his character.

Michael Caine is also excellent as a really nasty piece of work - an ex-convict lacking the social skills that Alex's calculating, smooth operator has. Victor is a chain-smoker even though he's one coughing fit away from keeling over on the spot. He is driven by his lack of time. He knows that he's dying and Caine does a great job of conveying his increasing desperation. He manages to all but steal the film away from Nicholson.

Caine and Nicholson make a fun team to watch as the former sleazes his way through Blood and Wine with his greasy black hair and dry sense of humour that plays well off of the latter's increasingly desperate schemer. The fun of watching this movie is to anticipate all of the plot twists and turns that revolve around a diamond necklace. Rafelson does not forget that ultimately this movie is driven by its characters and lets us get to know them and their motivations so that we are personally involved in their respective fates.

For a marginalized movie, the DVD for Blood and Wine is packed with a surprising number extras and with most of the major players (Rafelson, Nicholson, Caine and Dorff) contributing to featurettes and commentary tracks.

There is an audio commentary by director Bob Rafelson. He talks about working on a relatively low-budget movie (i.e. working fast on a short schedule) and how this forced him to come up with creative solutions to problems that arose. This is a relaxed track as the filmmaker takes us through his filmmaking process but with quite a few lulls although not too long in duration.

Also included are 11 scene specific commentaries by Nicholson, Caine, Dorff, producer Jeremy Thomas and film critic Stephen Farber. Everyone offers some pretty decent observations making one wish that Nicholson and Caine went the distance with a feature length commentary.

There are seven making of featurettes that focus mainly on characters and the craft of acting. Rafelson talks about how he and Caine put Victor together through wardrobe (an aspect of the filmmaking process that the director seems obsessed with). Nicholson and Rafelson talk about their long professional relationship and how, at times, it is volatile but only because they've been good friends for years.

There are eight deleted scenes introduced by Rafelson. These scenes mostly flesh out the relationships between the characters in more detail. For example, there is a nice scene between Jason and his mother where they talk about his real father.

Finally, there is a theatrical trailer.

Blood and Wine follows a very disfunctional family, played by Jack Nicholson, the wonderful Judy Davis, and Stephen Dorff. Also along for the ride are Michael Caine, and even a young Jennifer Lopez, who is actually a good actress.

The story follows Alex (Nicholson), who is a wine seller, but he also has a bit of a larceny problem as well. So as he's selling expensive wine to rich people, he's also stealing their jewels. And he's also cheating on his wife (Davis) with the beautiful nanny (J.Lo). And his stepson (Dorff) absolutely hates him. And his partner in crime (Caine) is an ailing psychotic. And that's just the background to the story.

There are plenty of good twists and turns in this thriller. The direction is great, as is the acting from everyone. If you're looking for a good thriller that you've never heard of, check this one out. You won't be disappointed.

After the usual plethora of Hollywood murder mysterys in the 80s, this suprises with a number of twists that leave even the most jaded viewer suprised with the result. However the movie is dragged from B-Movie world by an outstanding double act between Jack Nicolas and Micheal Caine...a casting from hell that works so amazingly well. Worth watching just to see the two masters on the same screen.

I had never heard of this movie until I was searching through Amazon one day. Being a Jack Nicholson fan I thought why not buy it. Glad I did.

"Cubist" wrote an exceptional review and this one will not live up to that type of quality but I will put my two meager cents in. This is the first movie that I ever saw with Stephen Dorff. I was in college at the time and immediately identified with his character and intensity as an actor. Jack Nicholson is stupendous in this role (as usual)and he ignites the friction between him and his stepson, Jason (Dorff). He is an on-the-outs wine merchant who is in debt to say the least. So in order to get ahead he, along with a sleezy ex-con played by Michael Caine, steal a valuable necklace from some rich snobs.
Dorff unintentially gets caught up in the mess that his stepfather (Nicholson) has created and the plot thickens. This movie is great for drama and has solid performances by Nicholson, Dorff, and Caine. The brilliance in these performances are that they are subtle at times and do not try to cover over the plot itself (which due to a well written script can really drive this movie well). Jennifer Lopez is in this one as well and plays Nicholson's mistress. Her character really just annoyed me for some reason and I don't know why. Perhaps it's because I think at times, the movie itself wanted to portray her as a woman of strength and I just didn't see it. Her character was weak in a lot of ways and annoyed the hell out of me. But ultimately, if you want to see a solid movie that flies low under the radar, I would recommend this to anyone. Thanks.

BLOOD AND WINE could be the warm-up for a double feature with a flick from the mid-1980s, BLOOD SIMPLE. Both revolve around ensemble casts where no relationship may be worthy of, much less built on, trust.

BLOOD SIMPLE's the better film but BLOOD AND WINE is not without its creepy charms. Michael Caine stands out as hot-tempered, TB-suffering safe cracker hellbent on pulling off one last caper with partner Jack Nicholson. Speaking of Nicholson, critic Roger Ebert said it was BLOOD AND WINE, not AS GOOD AS IT GETS, that was the Oscar-worthy performance the great actor did that year.

Some of BLOOD AND WINE's plot devices struck me as a little weak, not that I want to give too much away. But just as you start to un-suspend your disbelief, Caine, Nicholson and Jennifer Lopez electrify the next scene.

And to give the story some credit, BLOOD AND WINE has Lopez's character taking a boat ride with a young man with whom she has a mutual attraction. Yet nothing happens while they have each other alone at sea. Again, without giving away too much, later on they are alone in a bedroom for the first time, with further results at least one of them would not expect!

See BLOOD AND WINE, and if you have never seen BLOOD SIMPLE, get both. Trust me.

Jack's back in Blood and Wine, but I'm not sure the results will have you drunk with joy. The script does call for the great grinner to be a snake in the grass wine dealer who's looking to score some major jewels. Fine. But there's no zing, no pop, no nothing.

Alex Gates (Nicholson) can't make anybody happy anymore. He's cash-poor and his wine business hasn't aged all that well. His had-it-up-to-here wife Suzanne (Judy Davis) ends up doing more whining then her hubby. He's never home, and when he is, he usually goes at it with Suzanne's son Jason (Stephen Dorff).

The point of all this is theft. Alex calls on old friend Victor Spansky (Michael Caine in the best role he's had in years) to help him pull it off. The two aren't exactly Bonnie and Clyde but they do good work before Suzanne gets wise to Alex and his mistress (the hot, hot, hot Jennifer Lopez).

I find it admirable that Nicholson's been taking pay cuts to star in low budget films like this one and Sean Penn's underrated The Crossing Guard, but what happened to the man's taste in scripts.

The silver lining is when Jack goes toe-to-toe with Davis, who matches him scowl for scowl and wields a golf club like a psycho Tiger Woods. Also, Caine's hacking sleazoid is beautiful, but the two old dragons never get enough room to breathe the fire that's in them.

The problem here has to be director Bob Rafelson who, for whatever reason, can't build the suspense. Under the tutelage of Captain Bob, the stakes are never high enough. What we're left with is a second rate thriller with glimmers of brilliance. It's not enough. Remember friends, Blood and Wine don't mix.