Coastlines (2002) | DVD Review

Painful. COASTLINES is painful to watch. First of all, it’s boring all around. The story is almost as flat as the way it is told visually. Awkward framing, poor lighting and shaky camera work remind you at all times of the low caliber of the film. Hollow performances by nearly the entire cast grate on every nerve but can only seriously be blamed on the banalities of the script. Timothy Olyphant, in a true waste of his potential, plays Sonny Mann. Sonny has just come home from prison after a three-year stint. In the day that follows, he encounters, and subsequently the viewer is introduced to, a number of influential and blatantly symbolic folk he knew from before he was incarcerated. He first sees his father (Scott Wilson), his life compass, followed by the film’s bad guys, the Vance’s (Josh Lucas and William Forsyth). They’re bad just because, the best, and easiest, kind of bad. Whereas the Vance’s represent the wrong path for Sonny, his best friend, Dave (Josh Brolin) and his wife, Ann (Sarah Wynter) represent a stable future that Sonny could have, kids and all. And what first day out of prison would not be complete without hooking up with some trailer park trash before the evening is through. First day and already Sonny has so many possibilities. He could go back to the crime world that got him in trouble to begin with but could lead to so many riches. He could find a girl, maybe of the trailer trash variety, and settle down to raise a family. What makes this all so tedious is that it categorizes a life of crime as glamorous and exciting whereas a life of domesticity is boredom and death. I’ve never heard that one before.

To varying degrees, all the major characters grapple with the monotonous nature of a structured life. Someone should have told writer/director Victor Nunez that people bored with every aspect of their lives are just plain boring to watch. Even more boring, and often bizarre, is the director commentary, one of the two special features on this DVD. Nunez must have trouble seeing because he goes on incessantly about how wonderful the film is. He gushes about the lighting when there is barely any to speak of. He refers twice to the great big editing gods in the sky that made two scenes impossible to cut together the way he would have originally liked. Of course, they turned out so much better this way. He couldn’t possibly address it as the desperation it actually is. My favorite bit though was when he was talking about one of his favorite shots. Sonny, David and his family are sitting around a table on their porch, getting ready to take a picture to commemorate the occasion of Sonny’s return. Nunez’s camera is placed behind Dave’s camera and as Dave runs away from it after getting it ready, the ground shakes and so does Nunez’s camera along with it. Then, for no apparent reason, the camera reframes the image just slightly. Still, Nunez gushes. A true dissappointment from the director who gave us of Ulee’s Gold (1997) and Sundance-winning Ruby in Paradise (1993).

COASTLINES is ripe with denial. No one seems to be able to acknowledge how horrid it is. The actors look like they would rather be elsewhere and the director seems to think the experience was heavenly. Luckily for all involved, no one saw this in theatres, and I will leave you with an appropriated quote from the film that will hopefully ensure that even fewer people see this on DVD … This movie is as cold as a dead mullet.

Movie rating – 0.5

Disc Rating – 1