- Actors: Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Piper Perabo
- Director: Brian Goodman
- Disc Format: AC-3, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English (DTS 5.0)
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Region: Region A/1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: R
- Studio: LIONSGATE
- Release Date: July 25, 2017
- Run Time: 93 minutes
The only thing
that is worse than a film relying on twists to wrap up its narrative is one
that boasts them in the marketing campaign. It isn’t much of a twist if
audiences are expecting it, and that is exactly what happens when a movie like Black Butterfly chooses a tagline like
“A Killer Story with a Twist.” The solution that director Brian Goodman has is
to pile the twists upon each other, each one more ridiculous and insulting than
the last. It’s like a Russian nesting doll of bad narrative ideas, all built in
a premise that has initial promise. But, I suppose all blame can not be placed
on Goodman’s lap, as this isn’t even an original film, adapted from the 2008
French film of the same name. One must also blame the unwillingness of American
audiences to watch foreign films, and now many of the same mistakes have been
repeated in a different language.
As far too many
thrillers seem to, the protagonist of Black Butterfly is a writer, unable to
complete his latest novel. The writer who can’t write a good story until they
live out a real-life story that they can exploit for material is so fucking
tired that I feel exhausted just writing it out. Half of Stephen King’s body of
work seems to utilize this character (and often the plot device as well). But I
will move on, even those this trope returns in full force throughout the film.
Paul (Antonio Banderas) is having such a hard time succeeding as a writer that
he is in the process of selling his secluded cabin in Colorado, though his real estate agent
(Piper Perabo) is having an equally difficult time finding anyone interested in
the remote pigsty.
Paul seems to
conveniently stumble upon a solution to all of his problems when he picks up a
drifter hitchhiking along the road to his cabin. Jack (Jonathan Rhys Meyers)
has an air of danger, which is meant to be suspicious after we watch an opening
scene of a woman being abducted and conveniently hear local news of a serial
killer loose in the area. But despite Jack’s violent persona, he immediately
begins fixing up Paul’s home, making it more presentable for sale. At the same
time, he encourages the writer to do less drinking and more work, even planting
the seed of an idea to write a book about his own mysterious arrival.
There is a
middle section of the film which begins to bear an uncanny resemblance to Misery, making the author-as-protagonist
trope even more telling. From there, the movie delves into a number of useless
plot twists, essentially throwing a middle finger at the audience with the
final one. Even if there are moments of sincere suspense within this film, it
is designed to make you feel cheated by the end. The only thing making the
viewing worthwhile is the actual experience of the viewing, because the film
does not stand up to further inspection. And within that viewing experience, it
is only the dedicated performances of the three leads that even begin to make
up for the contrived dialogue and manipulative twists.
The Blu-ray
release for Black Butterfly is somewhat
unnecessary. Although there is some beautiful scenery in the Colorado setting, much of the film is spent
inside the dusky cabin. It is a film full of dialogue, with only a few brief
action scenes that don’t offer many visual spectacles that high definition
might enhance. The disc also comes with a code for the Digital HD copy of the
movie, and a handful of extras on the disc. These special features include an
audio commentary with Goodman, along with co-writer Marc Frydman. There is also
a brief promotional making-of featurette.
Entertainment Value:
6/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 5.5/10
Historical
Significance: 3/10
Special Features: 4/10
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