Sam Raimi was incredibly close to producing a genuine classic in A Simple Plan. Even though its relatively tame camera work was a departure from the kinetic style of his cult classics The Evil Dead and Darkman, the Billy Bob Thornton-scripted parable about greed established the talented filmmaker as a serious storyteller, an auteur that was able to flesh out interesting, rich characters. His sharp sense of the macabre empowered him to instill acute uneasiness in his audience.

The Gift takes Raimi’s talents a step further, but he just misses the level of excellence he achieved in the 1998 morality tale. Combining the visual elegance and seemingly normal backdrop of an average American town, The Gift spins a tale that, like A Simple Plan, has likeable, but highly imperfect mortals trying to overcome their personal demons. The Gift also sports one of the most interesting cast ensembles in recent memory, including Cate Blanchett, Greg Kinnear, Hillary Swank, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Cole, and Keanu Reeves with a most impressive performance as a profoundly evil man.

At its core, The Gift is a formulaic "who-dunnit" that escapes mediocrity with extremely well-drawn characters and extended moments of genuine chills. As a widow in the small town of Brixton, Georgia, Annie Wilson (Blanchett) is trying to get on with her life and raise her three boys after the tragic death of her beloved husband. Within the first few minutes of the film, we realize that the mildly reclusive Annie isn’t simply some psychic charlatan looking to make a quick buck off the misfortune or naïveté of others. It’s apparent that she genuinely cares for people. Among her clientele are battered wife Valerie Barksdale (Swank), psychologically damaged auto mechanic Buddy Cole (Ribisi), and desperate schoolteacher Wayne Collins (Kinnear). Each of these character’s personal troubles factors into the conflicts and subplots that gives weight to the story, but it is the disappearance of Wayne’s radiant and sexually deviant fiancé that drives the film. Annie’s involvement in the search for Jessica King (Holmes) triggers her to have violent visions that lead to the missing woman, which mistakenly points to Donnie Barksdale (Reeves) as the culprit. Unfortunately, it was this plot line that proved to be The Gift’s Achilles’ heal.

In spite of its creepy visuals, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Jessica King involves a third act that telegraphs her assailant’s true identity a good deal before the story does. As I sat there watching with my wife, I kept thinking, "No, it can’t be that easy. This movie is too good to have the resolution be that obvious." But sadly it was that obvious, with an outcome that was neither surprising nor dramatic. Also disappointing was the blatant setup of the depraved Donnie Barksdale and the absolutely clichéd plot device of having Annie make herself a target by confessing her mistake to all those who could have been the story’s true antagonist!

Technically, The Gift exhibits the attributes of an extremely well-produced feature with topnotch talent both in front of and behind the camera. The images and audio were crisp and well crafted, while surround channels were used to disturbing affect during Annie’s creepy visions. The exceptions to an otherwise excellent presentation were a Dolby Digital 5.1-only soundtrack and Christopher Young’s music, which had more than a passing resemblance to Carter Burwell’s fiddle-driven score in Fargo and James Horner’s sweet strings in Jack the Bear.

DVD extras were basically nonexistent. A "Look Inside" featurette had the appearance of being taped during a press junket, while a lame music video and theatrical trailer did little but waste DVD storage capacity. Had Paramount included a DTS-encoded version of the well-mixed soundtrack or even one commentary, I may have bumped the score up a bit.