The Cell
February 2001 Reviewed by: Wes Marshall Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The Cell begins by introducing psychotherapist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), who is involved with the experimental "neurological synaptic transfer system." This system allows one person to enter another’s mind. Deane is working to help a young boy in a coma by entering his mind and attempting to lure him back to the real world through a combination of unconditional positive regard and therapeutic catharsis. In the mean time, FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) is hunting serial killer, Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio). Early in the movie, Stargher captures another victim, Julia Hickson (Tara Subkoff). He begins his ritual torture process, which includes a vicious computer programmed forty-hour torture that slowly floods his victims' cell and ends with their deaths by drowning, but Novak captures him before Julia’s murder is complete. Unfortunately, Stargher lapses into a coma, so he can’t tell the FBI where they can find Julia, who has less than forty hours to live. Novak enlists Deane to enter Stargher’s mind and hopefully discover Julia’s whereabouts before her time is up.

People have deeply divided feelings about The Cell. Kenneth Turan from the L.A. Times said he was sorry he had ever seen it. Conversely, Roger Ebert went so far as to suggest that anyone who didn’t love The Cell simply didn’t understand it. At its original release, I raved about the film to several friends. Their reactions ranged from artistic admiration for the astonishing visuals, to out and out anger over the violent images they couldn’t get out of their minds. Almost like a Rorschach test, people will either gravitate to the art and be amazed, or fixate on the depravity and be offended.

Part of what divides people over The Cell is the hyper-violent actions of the rampaging Stargher, both in the waking world and in his mind. While stunningly portrayed, it is nevertheless sick. Brilliantly realized by D’Onofrio, Stargher harkens back to Thomas Harris’s characters Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon and Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs (the books, not the movies). What always makes Harris’s books so much scarier than the movies made from them is how he delves into the bad guy’s twisted mind. Both Manhunter (the movie made from Red Dragon) and the movie version of Silence of the Lambs avoid the thoughts of the killer, other than by observation or by using the old device of having others explain it. In The Cell, Singh dares to take us directly into Stargher’s brain and accomplishes that difficult task with the perfect device -- the "neurological synaptic transfer system." It allows us to go straight past any emaciated super-ego still active in Stargher’s personality straight to his shadowy id, and to see it in all its fascinating and frightening opulence. This is where people who are even remotely squeamish will feel as though an inappropriate boundary has been crossed. Singh and his crew take us into the mind of a serial killer, a sociopath consumed with self-referential pathological conventions. In truth, the filmmakers probably didn’t go far enough, but they certainly go beyond what most people want to see.

The New Line Platinum Series DVD is a visual stunner from start to finish. The brilliant colors from the film translate perfectly. In the theater, you could hear people gasping at the savage majesty of Stargher’s descent from his throne (Chapter 12). The DVD effortlessly captures the details of the effects, especially the tricky rendering of his flowing cape. The Cell cries for the largest possible screen. In the theater, the outdoor scenes are breathtaking. On my eight-foot screen, they were only impressive.

Problems? Whoever mixed the sound for the DVD dropped the volume of the music. In the opening scene, the music is the glue that holds the many cuts together, changing them from a series of pretty pictures to an almost unendurably frenzied preamble. Composer Howard Shore accomplishes this by starting with orchestral music and, about one minute in, adding the Master Musicians of Jajouka, a Moroccan ensemble featuring agonizingly loud drums and screaming reed instruments. For the next two minutes the volume gets louder and louder, screeching, pounding and then suddenly drops to a whisper. The drama is incalculable. At least it is in the theater. On the DVD, it is just present, not overwhelming. One point off. I’ve also docked New Line ½ point for the idiotic, illogical and insensitive choice of location for the layer change.

The Cell DVD has an extravagant array of extras. There are two feature length commentaries, one by Singh and one by the production crew. We get a series of deleted scenes, with commentary by Singh. A "making of" feature is better than normal, especially for the production crew’s insights on Singh ("whenever we were afraid we had gone too far, Singh told us to go further!") and Vaughn’s sly take on dealing with Lopez and Puff Daddy’s "posse." I also loved the multi-angle interviews with the crew about how they created the effects. For those with DVD-ROM players, you can follow the script with the script-to-screen feature.

There is an age-old contention: if one actor is great, it’s great acting; if all the acting is great, it’s great directing. I’ll take that a step further. When the crew, from cinematographer to set decorators to the special effects artists to the makeup people work this seamlessly, you know you are in the presence of a great director. Oh, did I mention this is his first film? In the tradition of Ridley Scott, Alan Parker and others, Singh comes to us from the world of commercials. He has enormous potential. I can’t wait for his next film.

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