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Released by: Image Entertainmemt
Released on: March 3, 2009.
Director: Bertrand Tavernier
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, John Goodman, Peter Sarsgaard, Mary Steenburgen, Ned Beatty
Year: 2008
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The Movie:
In director Bertrand Tavernier's In The Electric Mist, Tommy Lee Jones plays an aging Louisiana police detective named Dave Robicheaux who starts the film sitting in a bar not drinking the booze he just ordered. Dave's narration tells us that he has long wrestled with alcoholism and he gets a strange kick out of fighting temptation. From there, he's called away to a murder scene where a young woman, a former prostitute, has been found sliced up and left in the bayou.
Soon after that, a film crew has moved in and Dave winds up pulling over one of the picture's stars, Elrod Sykes (Peter Sarsgaard), for drinking and driving. Elrod can't go to jail so he makes Dave a deal and says that he'll show him where there's a dead body if he lets him off the hook. Dave agrees and Elrod takes him to the mucky corpse of a black man, hidden for decades, which must have been uncovered by the recent hurricane.
With two murders to solve, Dave sets about trying to do his job, going through the local suspects to try and figure out who killed who. He talks to an old acquaintance of his named 'Baby Feet' Balboni (John Goodman) who has since turned to a life of crime and he talks to a local businessman (Ned Beatty) but the only ones who seem to be able to offer him any help are the ghosts of the Confederate soldiers who appear only to him.
Despite the fact that the film's finale feels tacked on and completely unnecessary, In The Electric Mist is a decent hard boiled detective story with some nice tensions and ripe atmosphere. The strong supporting cast aid Jones in the lead while the Louisiana location shooting gives the movie a welcome air of sweaty authenticity and the cinematography is truly beautiful. It may sounds like Jones' character works on the same level as his character did in No Country For Old Men and it's hard not to compare the two pictures but this isn't really all that similar a picture on anything but a surface level.
Based on the novel In The Electric Mist With The Confederate Dead by writer James Lee Burke, the movie clicks along at a fairly deliberate pace but does a pretty decent job of layering the mystery quite effectively, holding our interest as Dave goes about trying to sort it all out. Jones portrayal of the weathered cop won't surprise anyone at this point in the game, he's made a career out of playing these types, but he does do it well and he at least manages to give his character some depth and emotion.
Wrap it all up with some gorgeous visuals and a nice score courtesy of Buddy Guy and you've got a decent enough mystery. Could it have been better? Less pedantic towards the end? Definitely, and supposedly there's an international cut of the film that runs a little longer and corrects some of these issues but as it stands, the R-Rated U.S. release of In The Electric Mist is good enough to warrant a recommendation.
Video/Audio/Extras:
In The Electric Mist looks really good in this progressive scan 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation. The color scheme is nice and detailed while the colors look warm and natural. Black levels are nice and strong while skin tones remain lifelike throughout the picture. There aren't any problems to note with mpeg compression artifacts or edge enhancement and despite some shimmering and mild aliasing, this is a nicely authored disc that presents us with a clean, sharp picture.
The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound track handles the action scenes nicely by spreading out the sound effects and the score across the stage. Rear channel activity is frequent and bass response is pretty strong. Dialogue is always easy enough to follow and understand though there are a couple of spots where the effects bury the performers just a bit. Aside from that, the levels are generally fine and this is a pretty strong effort. Optional subtitles are provided in English SDH and Spanish.
Extras are limited to the film's theatrical trailer and… that's it.
The Final Word:
While not a classic, Jones carries this film admirably and does a great job in the lead. The film winds up as a decent mystery and while Image's DVD is way too light on extra features at least In The Electric Mist looks and sounds quite good.