 | |
List Price: $27.98 | | Label: Image Entertainment
Salesrank: 2611
Released: December 15, 2009 |
| Our Price: $14.23 |
| Used Price: $14.00 |
|
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
A taut thriller, THE OTHER MAN is an intimate tale of a man who discovers his wife's infidelity and sets out to track down his rival. Driven to pursue the mystery surrounding his wife’s adultery, Liam Neeson embarks on a global pursuit with a haunted passion that begins to probe the nature not simply of jealousy, but of loss and forgiveness. The film is beautifully shot on location in Milan and Lake Como as well as in London and Ely by renowned cinematographer Harris Zambarloukos (Mama Mia!, Heart in the Sand.)
Stills from The Other Man (Click for larger image)
The Other Man Reviews:
This Is No Suspense Thriller 
2009-12-22 - Just watched the DVD without having seen the Trailers or previous reviews. Picked up the movie based on the quality of the actors and the description on the DVD case, a "gripping suspense thriller". Based on the DVD case description we thought we were getting a Hitchcockian type suspense thriller. Hardly!
Plot synopsis: Happily married couple...wife walks out the door and disappears about ten minutes into movie...husband spends remainder of movie tracking down, dealing with, and coming to terms with the emotional trauma created by "The Other Man". Husband knows why wife disappears from the moment we see her leave in a slow motion shot...no mystery to him at all. Too bad we are left hanging for the next forty-five minutes. Her apparent disappearence early on has nothing to do with the plot other than to make us think we are watching a suspense thriller. No guns, no chases, no violent confrontations, no 180 degree plot twists, and no surprise ending. In fact, the ending is wierd and beguilling. In our our view it seems tacked on and somewhat implausable.
First rate acting and beautiful locale photography of Milan and Lake Como, Italy, make up, somewhat, for a disjointed plot and some odd film editing. In the scenes following the wife's disappearance we literally stopped the DVD and wondered if it had skipped ahead a chapter by mistake. Additionally, if we hadn't spent two years living near Milan and Lake Como we'd loose track of the continuous flashbacks and changes in plot locations. This is a film requiring your full attention to keep up.
Still, if we'd wanted to watch a lushly made "Lifetime TV" drama which confusingly unfolds revealing a love triangle, we'd rent this movie. It just isn't what it describes itself to be.
I wish I could give lower than One star 
2009-12-20 - This movie is a complete disaster, and not recommended for people, who are on antidepressant pills.
Very slow start, with memory flashes makes this movie dragging and very slow. Movies supposed to be entertaining even if they are horror.
But this script is a total waste. Only few people got out of this movie, and they are the actors, who got paid well for their great acting.
I wonder if they saw the final edit, and I wonder what was their opinion.
A watch for Neeson and the locales only
2009-12-13 - Once again the cover art is misleading (having to add a gun that never exists) but at the same time it illustrates a foreshadowing with Linney's character (ghostly look). Some beautiful filming locations and Liam Neeson's driven seriousness cover for some questionable writing and a poor non-lineal approach to the storytelling.
The story follows a husband who stumbles upon his wife's indiscretion via her computer, and proceeds to find, stalk and confront the man who cheated with her. Banderas overplays horribly his role as the suave artist that exaggerates his lot in life, coincidentally the ploy that makes Linney fall in love with him. As the story leapfrogs between past events and present day, we see how things have come to be and if mistakes can be forgiven.
SPOILER: Normally I do not do "twists" but this is given to you 9 minutes into the film - plus the ads and trailers hint to this: He does all of this research and stalking as a widower. Linney disappears a few minutes into the film and only reappears through flashbacks and naked pictures for the remainder. I was disappointed in how they scattered her sequences and I never felt the connection you should for the first half of the film, only towards the end do you feel the pain that should have been placed in the beginning. END SPOILER.
The locations are gorgeous but both chances to have beautiful 1080 clarity with sweeping landscapes are weighed down with fog. You never get a real test of outdoor-scapes, but the DTS was excellent, even with mild scenes - reference 9:16 in with the car driving to the house (the birds and assorted sounds use all five channels nicely). The special features are several cast/director interviews that total 20 minutes and feel average in scope. As stated, Linney was an absentee and Banderas was hamming it up, so Neeson carries this story. If you infer what had to happen to get to the scenes they throw at you for the first half hour you might get more out of it. 2.5 stars for the film, .5 for the Blu specs and extras.
Suspense Askew 
2009-12-13 - THE OTHER MAN is a thinking person's film, a film well cast, finely acted, and well written by writer/director Richard Eyre based on a short story by master storyteller Bernhard Schlink ('The Reader', 'Flights of Love' - collection of short stories from which this story is excerpted, etc). If some viewers find the film confusing or too subtle in the unraveling of a fascinating tale, the problem is that the cast and director and writers demand more of the viewer's attention than in the usual movie fare. A suspense film should keep the viewer in the dark, or thinking in one direction, until a little twist changes the story that has been unfolding on a different level. That is what THE OTHER MAN does and it is a pleasure to be surprised in this way.
Peter (Liam Neeson) is a successful business man whose wife Lisa (Laura Linney) is a successful and high profile shoe designer. He spends much of his life in her shadow but the marriage works for them both and they obviously love each other and their young rambunctious daughter Abigail (Romola Garai) who is attached to the somewhat hippie, strange George (Craig Parkinson). Lisa's office comrades - Ralph (Patterson Joseph) and Vera (Pam Ferris) - are supportive of both Peter and Lisa and the world seems balanced. Very early in the film Lisa departs for Milan for another showing of her shoes, but she doesn't return. Peter grows suspicious when he discovers insinuating email messages from a man named Ralph, and once he discovers this Ralph is not her office comrade, he sets out on a mission to find the source of his wife' surprise infidelity. He discovers pictures taken in a special hotel in Milan, pictures that reveal photos of 'Ralph' (Antonio Banderas) in intimate situations with Lisa. Peter travels to Milan with the intent to kill Ralph, stalks him, and discovers his pastime of playing chess in a little Milanese café. And this is where Schlink and Eyre change the twist of the story, and Ralph is not at all whom he appears to be, nor is the direction of Peter's vengeance as focused as we expected. It is this crucial turn of storyline that make this film so endearing and to suggest, even slightly, the final moments of this film would destroy the suspense so well written and directed and acted.
Neeson, Linney, Banderas, and Garai are all splendid in these difficult roles - Linney continues to mature as an actress while becoming ever more beautiful in countenance. This is a tightly drawn suspense tale and well worth the attention of the public unafraid to think along with the development of the story. Grady Harp, December 09
