Product Details

• Actors: Jeff Bridges, Isabella Rossellini, Rosie Perez, Tom Hulce, John Turturro
• Directors: Peter Weir
• Writers: Rafael Yglesias
• Producers: Alan B. Curtiss, Christine A. Johnston, Mark Rosenberg, Paula Weinstein, Robin Forman
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: April 27, 1995
• Run Time: 122 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303032311
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #228,560 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

When Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) finds himself facing imminent death as his plane hurls toward the ground, he finds inner calm and release from fear in his acceptance of his own unavoidable end. His panic erased, he helps other passengers to relax, and when he survives the impact, to escape. What follows is his difficult and complex journey back to emotional and spiritual equilibrium. Along the way he helps Carla (Rosie Perez), a woman smashed by the belief that her infant son's death in the accident was the direct result of her inability to hold him tightly enough, and alienates his wife, Laura (Isabella Rossellini), who tries desperately to understand what he's experiencing. Peter Weir's film is emotionally intense in an absolutely unsentimental way (very rare), and the complexity of the protagonist's experience is refreshing (if you don't mind feeling deeply). The handling of the crash sequences is chilling in an unsensational way, and the directing in general is a triumph of story-serving restraint. Not the usual Hollywood fare, but intensely rewarding for those who are tired of mind candy. --James McGrath

From The New Yorker

The central event in Peter Weir's new movie is the crash of a commercial airliner. Weir knows a metaphor for the fragility of modern man's existence when he sees one, and he seizes on this calamity as if it were something that he had been searching for all his life: an ideal vehicle for the sort of apocalyptic imagery and metaphysical speculation that dominated his early films, like "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (1975) and "The Last Wave" (1977). In terms of imagery and rhythm, this is a stunning piece of filmmaking; it's also a shamelessly florid exercise in therapeutic uplift. Essentially, Weir hijacks a fairly straightforward story about a couple of crash survivors (played by Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez) and takes it to the Twilight Zone. Also with Isabella Rossellini, John Turturro, and Tom Hulce. Screenplay by Rafael Yglesias, based on his novel. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five star movie...conflicting opinions on the DVD, March 23, 2001

By 

Archmaker (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fearless (DVD)

This is a fabulous film. Emotionally deep, flawlessly directed and acted, without a false note throughout.

Jeff Bridges is (as always) excellent as a man who has undergone a transcendent experience so profound he cannot find his way back to his real life and world. Rosie Perez is not always my favorite actress, but here she is deeply moving as the guilt-racked, nearly destroyed mother of a dead child. The interplay between these two as they relate to each other and cannot relate to their families is told simply and eloquently, building to a shattering emotional climax.

Throw in terrific supporting performances by Isobella Rosselini as Bridge's loving wife who wants to reach him but cannot find the key to understanding his experience, Tom Hulce as a weasel lawyer, Benecio Torres as Rosie's husband who sees no harm in getting money for the tragedy and you have a full cast of three dimensional characters.

Oh, and there is a frightening plane crash that is grippingly done.

First rate in all departments, I originally thought this DVD needed to be in widescreen, but I have been advised that Pan and Scan is not used, and what you get is pretty much the movie as it was presented in the theatre. Others say no. I agree with many of you that a better presentation of this film would be nice (Criterion?). It is a film of great depth and beauty and well worth your while.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Thought I was A Ghost..., August 19, 2000

By 

J. Brittman "The Bottom Line" (Long Island, New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fearless (DVD)

Fearless is like no other movie, it treads in dangerous water. The story follows a plane crash survivor and the trauma that affects him and changes his day to day life. In many ways, the viewer comes to realize that what Max Klein is going through is actually far worse than being killed in the crash he survives. Fearless is a life affirming experience and an important overlooked film. Jeff Bridges may be the most underrated American actor of his time and he turns in another stellar performance here. I was also surprised by the range of Rosie Perez who gives a great performance as a crash survivor who loses her 2 year old son. Peter Weir is a master director and the use of sound in this film is astonishing. This movie has one of the best endings I have ever seen. Buy this DVD.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A definite MUST SEE film!, July 16, 2001

By 

Martin (Royal Oak, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fearless (DVD)

This is a "change your life" type of film.

A survivor of a plane crash must come to terms with this new and improved, awakened and liberated version of himself, this version of himself that has suddenly been unburdened of a lot of timidity and fearful emotional baggage he'd been lugging around through his adult life.

And those around him must also come to terms with this radically changed person that has emerged in the wake of his Near-Death-Experience.

The movie is beautifully acted. Bridges' performance is exceptional, perhaps his finest. As are the performance given by Perez and Rossellini and the rest of the cast. Weir's directing is superb and sublime. The script is a beautiful distillation of finer points of the novel of the same name; and the use of time in this novel is brilliant. And the music ................. what can I say: this is one of my favorite soundtracks.

This is movie of profound substance, profound enough to disturb, to awaken, to cause one to question one's life, perhaps even to effect real change. As Kakfa wrote, in a letter to a friend, "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. We need the books that affect us like a disaster, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside us." I think Kafka would have really liked this film as it has high ax potential.

Very highly recommended.