The River King (2005)
Abel Grey is sent to investigate the death of a boy from an exclusive local school, who is found floating in the river. Fearing scandal, the school insists it was suicide. But after discovering from the boy's girlfriend, Carlin, that he was being badly bullied, Abel suspects that a dangerous schoolboy initiation has gone horribly wrong and he secretly solicits the help of a sympathetic teacher, Betsy. He is warned off the investigation by his boss, as the school is a generous benefactor to the Police benevolent fund. Abel, however, cannot let the case go, not only because his own brother committed suicide years before, but also it seems that the spirit of the dead boy is leaving them clues as to what really happened that night.
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Wonderful Movie
One of my all time favorites.
This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
Policeman Abel Grey (Edward Burns) is tasked to investigate a body found in the frozen river. It turns out to be a student living in a nearby boarding school. Everybody wants this to be a simple suicide, but Abel is sure that he was murdered. The only person who liked him was fellow student Carlin Leander (Rachelle Lefevre) and teacher Betsy Chase (Jennifer Ehle).It was a slow grind for the first half. It was pretty quickly evident what the plot points are. But it kept slowing down, going back to flashbacks, and going nowhere. The second half had better pace, and the story moved better. In the end, the mystery wasn't as compelling as it should be.Edward Burns was competent if not very exciting. His backstory could have been better explained. The same can be said of all those flashbacks with the boy. They all could be better.
The first thing I did after watching The Silence of the Lambs for the first time was run out and read the original novel by Thomas Harris. It was that good a movie. The River King is based on a book by Alice Hoffman but after viewing this film, I not only don't want to read the book, I don't ever want to meet Alice Hoffman in person. In fact, if Alice Hoffman were drowning, I wouldn't throw her a life preserver. If she were on fire, I wouldn't cross the street to spit on her. If she were starving, I wouldn't let her lick the Cheeto dust off my fingers. That's how disappointing this movie is.What passes for a plot in this thing involves small town police officer Able Grey (Edward Burns) investigating the death of a student at the exclusive Haddan School, which seems to be the idea of an English boarding school transplanted to America from someone who not only has never been to England but I don't think ever actually went to school. The girls school on The Facts of Life TV show was more realistic than this.Anyway after the body of young August Pierce (Thomas Gibson) is found under the frozen ice of the local river, which is really more of a creek than a river, Able and his partner Joey (John Kapelos) set out to investigate. Their inquiries are somewhat hampered by the desire of the Haddan administration to dismiss August's death as a suicide and the pressure brought to that end on the local police. A bigger difficulty for Able and Joey is that they appear to be the worst cops to ever wear a badge. These doofuses make Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show look like a combination of Columbo, Eliot Ness and T. J. Hooker.While poking around, Able talks to but never gets any useful information from a red head named Carlin (Rachelle Lefevre), August's fellow student and only friend at the school. She's the sort of girl who treats August like her gay best friend, even though he's not gay. Although, it's not entirely clear from the story if August is gay or not or if he is gay, whether Carlin or even August realize it. That's the sort of quality storytelling on display here.Able also meets a teacher at the Haddan School, Betsy Chase (Jennifer Ehle). She doesn't really contribute anything to his examination of August's death either, but Able and Betsy do fall into bed together in one of the least believable romances in the history of men and women having sex. It would have made just as much sense for Able to fall in love with August's corpse as it did for him and Betsy to get together.As the film plods along, we get some flashbacks of August's life at school, Able gets an assload of evidence indicating August's death was a murder essentially handed to him by the Almighty Plot Hammer and August's ghost even makes an appearance in the story. No, I'm not joking about that. Finally and I mean FINALLY we get to a conclusion literally cobbled together from some of the oldest clichés imaginable, including a twist so pathetic it's more like a mild sprain.As terrible as the totality of The River King is, the black hole of suck at the heart of it is Edward Burns. How does this guy keep getting work? I know he's demonstrated some talent as a filmmaker, but he has to be the most impassive actor of his generation. There are giant stone heads on Easter Island that have a greater range of expression than Burns. His performance in this movie ranges from looking like he's trying to remember a phone number to looking like he just smelled his own fart. He's handsome and all that but for the sake of every struggling actor out there, stop hiring this guy!I occasionally wonder if I am too harsh in criticizing bad films. Even something as ghastly as The River King involved the hard work of many talented people. But when I watch a movie like this one, which is nothing more than a waste of everyone's time, I'm reassured that warning people against such films in the strongest possible terms is the right thing to do.So, in the strongest possible terms don't watch this movie.
This movie has many problems. The acting is not great. It is slow. It does not develop the characters. And the plot is not interesting enough, nor developed enough.They never develop any of the characters, not even the main character Abe. They had many chances to develop his character, but instead just kept adding in trivial scenes. It feels as if they are trying to get "through" all of the book, instead of correctly editing it down to a good movie.Even the name of the movie has nothing really to do w/ the plot.Finally, Ed Burns was completely miscast. He is WAY too aristocratic to be a cop. Besides his accent is completely incorrect for the local, etc. And he can NOT disguise it.
I may have rated this movie 6+ if not for the ending. In the last 10 minutes I could barely justify a 4! Another person commented they didn't understand why this went straight to DVD without a run in the cinemas; I gotta wonder if they actually watched the ending?!... I'm sure the decision at least partially considered the hordes of people who would be swarming ticketing counters across the country demanding some compensation for the time they wasted watching this movie thru to the finish. If your gonna get up and get popcorn or relieve yourself, it would be best to do it with about 10 minutes remaining... All bias aside, I believe this movie may be the best example of an anticlimactic ending I have ever been witness to.