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Holes

Holes on DVD

Okay, we’ll admit it right up front. We’d never heard of the book “Holes,” but had to admit that the trailers on TV interested us.

Then we got the DVD.

We tried; we really, really tried. Maybe it’s just us. We read innumerable online reviews of Holes to see if we’d missed the point. Perhaps we did. But we tried, we really, really tried.

But in the end, we found this a very tedious time in the home theater. By that time it was over, we were relieved to have lived through the experience.

There are some good themes here, and some real potential. But it appears wasted to us, because it’s packaged into a movie that, despite memorable characters and situations, suffers from the fact that it’s really, really boring.

Stanely Yelnats IV (Shia LaBeouf) is sentenced to Camp Green Lake, a youth detention camp that’s neither green nor has any evidence of a lake, for a crime he didn’t commit. The crime, theft of a pair of running shoes belonging to a sports celebrity, wouldn’t warrant such a sentence in real life - especially since this is supposedly a first offence - but there you are. Stanley finds himself at this POW-like institution where he and the other inmates are charged with digging a five foot wide by five foot deep hole every day, supposedly to build character.

It appears that character is something with which the kids are already imbued, however, and they’re just like kids everywhere else: some are good, some are bullies, some are quiet loners, etc.

As they dig, they’re admonished to look for “interesting things” they may dig up, with the carrot being that if they find something that catches the warden’s fancy they might get out of digging for the rest of the day.

Meanwhile we’re treated to a more interesting back story, that of the same area a hundred years or so ago when there was a lake and a real community there. But it’s a tragic story wherein attractive school marm Katherine Barlow is turned into Katherine 'Kissin' Kate' Barlow thanks to some racist oafs who take offence to the fact that she was kissed by a black man (who, in fact, seems to have more on the ball than any of them).

Kind of a politically correct Cat Ballou

But maybe it’s just us, but watching this was like listening to fingernails scratching on a blackboard - in glorious 5.1 surround sound that would make your hair stand on end.

To be fair, the cast is very good. Jon Voigt in particular seems to be having a good time as the irascible Mr. Sir, who appears to be the camp’s drill sergeant. Sigourney Weaver is also fine as the warden, and the kids are all well-cast and turn in good performances. Our favorites, however, were Patricia Arquette as Katherine Barlow and Dule Hill as Sam The Onion Man, who in a different time could have been her love interest.

None of them are enough to save this film, however….

The DVD is a different matter. It’s a THX-approved transfer that looks and sounds spectacular - a real waste of the technology as far as we’re concerned…

Needless to say, the video quality (which is presented in anamorphic widescreen, 16x9 TV compatible) is spectacular. Why, you can see every grain of sand in those damn holes, and every dirt-stained line on the cast’s faces! Colors are bright and rich (if they weren’t for the most part so sun-bleached) and the images are sharp as can be.

Audio, which is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, doesn’t display a lot of surround but nevertheless is still excellent.

Then there are the extras. First up is a running commentary featuring cast members La Beouf , Khleo Tomas, Jake M. Smith, and Max Kasch, and a filmmaker’s commentary by director Andrew Davis and author/screenwriter Louis Sachar, a “Gag Reel” of outtake-compatible stuff, and a "Dig It" Music Video performed by the cast.

You also get a “Making of Holes" featurette.

We're left to wonder why.

Oh well, maybe it's just us.

Holes, from Walt Disney Home Video
117 min. amamorphic widescreen (1.85:1, 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson, Shia LaBeouf|
Produced by Mike Medavoy, Andrew Davis, Teresa Tucker-Davies, Lowell Blank
Written by Louis Sachar, directed by Andrew Davis

 

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