The Interview (1998)
DVD5 Custom | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:40:03 | 4,37 Gb
Audio: #1 English, #2 Russian (added) - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each) | Subs: None
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama
DVD5 Custom | VIDEO_TS | NTSC 4:3 | 01:40:03 | 4,37 Gb
Audio: #1 English, #2 Russian (added) - AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps (each) | Subs: None
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama
Director: Craig Monahan
Stars: Hugo Weaving, Tony Martin, Aaron Jeffery
At 5 o'clock in the morning, the police blasted their way into Eddie's apartment and took him to the police headquarters. He's sitting in an interrogation room opposite detective John Steele who frequently interrupts the interview letting Eddie sweat until he comes back. He's suspected of car theft and even murder. But he isn't the only one under pressure, the detective himself has people on his back with other agendas.
''The Interview,'' an Australian film, is a cat-and-mouse game set up on a board very similar to ''The Usual Suspects,'' a situation in which the truth is constantly in play. This movie twists on perceptions of what is happening, starting when Fleming (Hugo Weaving) is rousted out of his dozing as his shabby one-room apartment is invaded by the police. It is not a terribly difficult movie to figure out, but it is quite diverting.
Part of the diversion may come from the vagaries of the Australian legal system, which in certain situations allows for a defense lawyer to become a potential witness for the police. Fleming's lawyer tells him that if she stays around for the police interrogation she can be subpoenaed as a witness. So Fleming is left alone with two detectives.
One is the veteran Steele (Tony Martin), a cagey hard case who plays it cool yet is in trouble with his superiors because of the way he operates. ''I'm brought in here to get results,'' he snarls. His methods lead a colleague to respond, ''You've had more complaints than Ned Kelly'' – Australia's famous outlaw hero.
Steele is being investigated by the ethics committee, the local version of internal affairs. His young partner, Wayne (Aaron Jeffery), has the hardheaded aggression of a man more eager to show off his biceps than what he picked up at the police academy. Surely even Melbourne's rules of conduct can't allow an officer to throw a suspect to the ground and put a gun to his head.
All this drama – the messy and destructive arrest, the seizing of Fleming's things from his home – occurs because of a stolen car, which may make one believe that the Queen's nominal subjects prize autos even more highly than the denizens of a Jerry Bruckheimer movie do. It turns out that the owner of the stolen car is missing, and the flagrantly illegal manner in which Fleming is being treated has something to do with all this. Or does it? A police procedural story in which the procedures are totally different from those in the United States can make things tough to follow, and ''The Interview'' is perpetually in mid-twist. Though sometimes the twirls of the narrative seem a bit arbitrary, they are necessary to keep the distrust mounting.
The filmmaking is executed with extreme competence; ''The Interview,'' which opens today at the Quad Cinema, is a technical showpiece. Craig Monahan, who directed and wrote the script with Gordon Davie, uses spaces to convey mood, and his cinematographer, Simon Duggan, gives the picture a cold sharpness; it looks as if it has been kept pristine in a grocer's freezer.
Mr. Weaving, whom most Americans probably know as the virtual enforcer from ''The Matrix'' and who has a string of fine Australian film performances to his credit, uses ''The Interview'' to display his quicksilver versatility. When he says he has been described as average, Mr. Weaving's wide eyes, eyebrows that seem to have a life of their own and savvy line reading give the lie to such an assessment. In ''The Matrix,'' he couldn't look less like a cyber invention. (Steele and Wayne dress like the evil enforcers from that film, with their intimidating dark suits and ties.)
''The Interview'' is really a competition between Fleming and Steele, with each man shifting position during the rounds of questioning. Viewers of police shows like ''N.Y.P.D. Blue'' and ''Homicide'' have seen entire episodes constructed around interrogations of suspects; Andre Braugher of ''Homicide,'' aglow with technique, became a star conducting them. Here, the police aren't always right, which allows both Fleming and Steele to go from manipulator to exploited during the proceedings.
''The Interview'' may be a minor work, but it is filled with major talents. Its cheeky theatricality is watchable; it works hard to keep you off balance.New York Times
Special Features:
- Directors commentary
- Thetrical trailer
- Press kit
- Deleted Scenes
Many Thanks to Original uploader.