DEAD AGAIN: Blu-ray (Paramount/Mirage, 1991) ViaVision Imprint

Kenneth Branagh’s movie career has been the stuff of enviable dreams, and more than a few lamentable misfires. That the Belfast-born Branagh ought to have risen through the ranks to become one of the most accomplished disciples of London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is not only enviable, but miraculous. That he should also have come to the attention of Hollywood in an era where such formidable training hardly mattered, and even more so, to have made an international success of it, bartering the weight of his talent for the ever-lasting worldwide fame that only American-based picture-making then could have afforded him, seems – at least in hindsight, an impossibility. Arguably, Branagh’s best work – even on celluloid – has remained firmly anchored to his affinity for Shakespeare, appearing and directing himself in the gritty and mesmeric, Henry V (1989), lavishly appointed, Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and, in his magnificent all-star opus magnum, Hamlet (1996). Somewhere along the way, alas, Branagh lost his edge, or rather, sold out to the fickle, but insidiously lucrative nature of the picture-making biz. Despite being knighted in 2012, and made a Freeman in Belfast in 2018, enviable distinctions indeed, when the epitaph is written about Kenneth Branagh, it will likely infer that the best of him was canceled out by the pall and bad taste left behind by some of his more questionable participations in drivel like Wild, Wild West (1999), and, abysmal 2007 remake of Sleuth – which he also directed. At present, Branagh is pilfering from the cabinet of Hercule Poirot, his successful all-star remake of Murder on the Orient Express (2017), appearing as a decided departure from Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective, sporting a handle-bar moustache that looks like a Kurt Russell knock-off from 1993’s Tombstone, and, leading to yet another visit to the thriller well with Death on the Nile, a picture originally planned for theatrical release in 2020, but now being taken out of mothballs for a pending 2021 debut.   

But in 1991, Branagh’s visions as one of the self-professed impresarios of cinema were far removed from the bard’s legacy, aspiring instead to resurrect the noir/crime/thriller with, Dead Again (1991), a picture that, unfortunately, proved an uneasy amalgam of the stylish roller coaster ride meets classic rom/com, but with interminable bouts of ennui interpolated to utterly diffuse its suspense. It’s odd too, because the chemistry between Branagh and co-star, Emma Thompson (a.k.a. the first Mrs. Branagh) is wholly absent here. The couple, who met on the set of 1987’s mini-series, Fortunes of War, and went on to wed two years later, also, to co-star again in the aforementioned ‘Much Ado…’ with far lustier aplomb, were presumably still in the after-bloom of the first act of their real marriage at the time Dead Again went before the cameras. And while rumor mills have churned ever since that Branagh had been unfaithful almost from the get-go with Helena Bonham-Carter (indeed, Branagh and Carter ‘began’ their public relationship after the ink on his divorce to Thompson dried in 1995 – it ended in 1999) there has also been speculation the real/reel reason for the split was Thompson’s involvement with her dashing Sense & Sensibility (1995) co-star, Greg Wise, whom Thompson married after a decidedly respectable period of adjustment in 2003.

Dead Again is a problematic, bloodless attempt to reinvigorate the B-noir thriller, updated and shot in color (with B&W flashbacks) for contemporary tastes, its would-be homage marred by a flawed psychological/supernatural twist that becomes grotesquely a cliché by the last act. Scott Frank's lumbering screenplay falls miserably short of its aspirations to sustain our suspension in disbelief. Instead, the picture toggles rather episodically between the ‘then’ present day, with Branagh’s goony, fly-by-night detective, Mike Church, seeking to protect a seemingly mute woman – ‘Grace’ – from visions of some terrifying past, and, Branagh, reincarnated as a suave and internationally renowned pianist, Roman Strauss, from the mid-1940’s, accused of murdering his wife, Margaret (also played by Thompson), and eventually tried, convicted and put to death for a crime he did not commit. After a sneak preview in which audiences were thoroughly baffled by the shenanigans of botched reincarnation, bad karma, fate vs. destiny and selective amnesia, the movie was re-cut and reedited with all sequences taking place in the past de-saturated into faux B&W to delineate the action between past and present narratives. Composer, Patrick Doyle – a Branagh favorite – lent his musical styling here. But his orchestral offerings are so flamboyantly over-the-top they all but swamp this tepid dumb show in lurid arias and over-rehearsed flourishes of musical bombast. From a technical standpoint, Dead Again is mostly on more solid ground. Branagh, one of the era’s finest thespians, was, in fact, enamored with the uninterrupted take, sustaining action and drama on the screen via performance alone. There are several lengthy scenes in the picture, effectively to use the cinema space as Branagh illustrates his actor’s prowess with just a wee too much preen and pomp to actually make it convincing for the rest of us.  Indeed, at times, he treats the character of Roman Strauss with all the artificial reverence of an ill-fated and tragic hero cut from the Shakespearean swath.  Branagh’s fascination with long takes yields some brief, albeit rather impressive camera work, including a 360-degree rotation inside the Laughing Duke pawn shop during an extended hypnosis sequence, designed to stir Grace from her catatonia. If only Frank’s screenplay had been able to do as much, either to make us laugh at the lighter bits or gasp at the sheer audacity and shock value of a good yarn, we might have had a very good thriller. As it stands, Dead Again provides very few opportunities to be elevated to the stature of a truly great, faux Hitchcockian affair.

Branagh and Thompson do neither of their dual roles the justice they deserve. He plays fast-talking private investigator, Mike Church in the present, and, cultured, though temperamental pianist/composer, Roman Strauss in a former life, but with the privileged pole firmly tucked up his backside. She ventures into some very cheap pantomime, best left to an episode of television’s then popular game show, ‘Win, Lose or Draw’ (1987-90) as the mysterious amnesiac Mike nicknames Grace, while seeming only slightly more at home as the haughty and exclusive, Margaret Strauss, Roman’s ill-fated wife, during the flashback sequences. In the first of these B&W regressions that opens our story, Roman is convicted of Margaret’s brutal murder. As he sits on death row, Roman is interviewed by hard-living newspaper reporter, Gray Baker (a horrendously miscast, Andy Garcia) who writes a series of lurid articles following the trial to its inevitable conclusion. From here, the story flashes forward. The Strauss mansion is now a Catholic monastery where Grace has been taken after having been found wandering the streets without the capability to speak. A spuriously unhelpful priest, Father Timothy (Richard Easton) contacts Mike to take Grace into police custody where she will be safe and out of his hair. However, after realizing just how awful the precinct can be, Mike takes pity on Grace, moving her into his apartment instead. Eager to unravel the mystery behind this woman’s real name and whereabouts, Mike contacts newspaper columnist, Pete Dugan (Wayne Knight) who takes some pictures of Grace and places an item in the paper, hoping to jog someone’s memory to claim her identity.

However, almost from the moment the article appears, charlatans only interested in Mike's potential reward, begin to crop up. Eventually, Mike and Grace are introduced to clairvoyant pawn broker, Franklyn Madson (Derek Jacobi, a beloved of Branagh’s ‘stock company’ players) who promises he can restore Grace from her self-imposed silence with regression therapy. This seemingly impossible feat he does indeed accomplish, although Madson’s motives are far from selfless. Gradually, the two opposing narratives - Roman and Margaret/Grace and Mike - begin to converge and then, startlingly enough, run a parallel course. As ruined psychotherapist turned frozen produce grocery clerk, Cozy Carlisle (Robin Williams) tells Mike, “It’s all part of the karma payment plan. Sin now. Pay forever.” Alas, from this heightened epoch of frenzy to put a name to a face, Dead Again steadily unravels into a thriller with fewer and fewer actual ‘thrills’ even as it enters its second act. I cannot decide which is more pedestrian: the screenplay, or Matthew F. Leonetti's cinematography - neither recapturing the moody look or feel of a classic noir thriller. True enough – Scott Franks’ narrative is full of holes and red herrings. But Leonetti’s camera work is so run-of-the-mill it feels like a Columbo movie of the week (or perhaps this comparison is a tad insulting to Columbo). Occasionally, there are some inspired visual touches – but, overall, Dead Again is a rather bland attempt to make a modern-age Hitchcock movie, albeit, with none of the master’s intimate or even, more broad-based touches. The B&W sequences are either under or over exposed, presumably to add a ‘vintage quality’ to their appearance. But the contemporary sequences, shot flat in color, have absolutely no visual flair to recommend them.

And then, there is the acting to consider. Branagh is rather tragically incapable of selling himself as the classic American gumshoe. His Mike Church bumbles like a half-ass and carefree adolescent out on a lark to solve this whodunit, just a devil-may-care Hardy boy who cannot decide whether to solve the crime or simply bed girl currently occupying space on his couch. Emma Thompson is an unintentionally hilarious amnesiac. Is she playing deaf and dumb, scared into silence, or merely channeling the spirit of Marcel Marceau? Someone ought to have explained to Thompson that her character has forgotten her past - not her marbles.  Worse, the supposed groundswell of romantic chemistry that is meant to make us care about Mike and Grace as a couple just isn't there. It is only superficially present in the Roman/Margaret flashbacks. Yet, there too, it seems unnaturally stifled. Derek Jacobi is an elfin presence with a peculiar and wholly unimpressive psychotic streak, too ethereal here to effectively be the villain of the piece, played strictly for comedy until the last act when he inexplicable switches over to utter insanity. The supposed hint of homo-eroticism between P.I. Gray Baker and Roman is, likewise, ill-conceived and badly played out. Furthermore, it undercuts Roman's innocence for the crime of killing his wife - a woman he supposedly genuinely loved.  Finally, Andy Garcia's turn as Baker is idiotic and dull - Garcia, looking more slick than sly and skulking around for a good story on which to pin his briefly channeled male charisma, is a bumbler into this quagmire of clues.

The one bright spot here – more of twinkle than a beacon, but only because he is given so precious little to do – is Robin Williams as embittered ex-shrink, Cozy Carlisle. When Williams appears as the unkempt, steely intellectual he doesn’t so much play to his comedian’s ilk to lighten the mood, as to deliver a riveting, wounded performance that flashes and glimmers with the promise of what a fine dramatic actor he might have been, given half the opportunity to shine – later, to be fully exorcised in his Oscar-winning turn as the psychotherapist in Good Will Hunting (1997). Alas, Dead Again is much too heavily weighted in a sort of ‘dark ride’ back and forth from past to present to stop and appreciate Williams’ genuine gifts. So, the plot moves on without him. Roman erroneously begins to believe his ever-devoted wife is in love with Baker, whom she was introduced to on their wedding day. And despite her protestations to the contrary, nothing can sway the jealous Roman from this suspicion.  In the present, Grace has visions of Mike standing over Margaret’s body with a pair of bloody scissors and believes he will try and murder her too. In a rather weak case of progressive transgenderism, it is revealed under Madson’s hypnosis, Grace is really the reincarnation of Roman – not Margaret, and that perhaps, Mike was Margaret in this past life – a revelation kept under wraps for the time being. Indeed, Mike also learns of a little boy named Frankie to whom Margaret was exceedingly fond. The boy, alas, formed an ‘unnatural’ attachment to her.

Now, Mike’s pal, Pete Dugan informs him of Grace’s true identity. She is the artist, Amanda Sharp – aptly named, since her modus operandi as a visual artist is in creating a series of sculptures that resemble pairs of scissors. Still terrified of Mike, Amanda is given a gun by Madson to protect herself while Mike visits an ailing Baker in a nursing home, hoping to unlock the mystery once and for all. Baker has no concrete evidence to provide, but insists Roman did not kill his wife. He also urges Mike to seek out Inga (Hanna Schygulla), the Roman’s devoted housekeeper, who would likely know what happened. Mike eventually pieces together the clues to reveal Madson is Frankie. Now, he questions Inga, who explains that her passion for Roman was rebuffed, leading to her great unhappiness. As Frankie blamed Margaret for this, he murdered her with scissors, then stole her anklet. Regrettably, the movie is more than a bit cryptic as to how or why Roman was discovered, drenched in his wife's blood and clutching the murder weapon. After Roman's execution, Inga took Frankie to London where he learned about hypnotherapy and past-life regression. Upon his return to Los Angeles, Frankie became obsessed with the notion Margaret's spirit would seek revenge upon him. Hence, when he saw Amanda's picture in the paper, he believed Margaret had been reincarnated to avenge her murder. So, Madson hired Doug (Campbell Scott), an actor, to impersonate Amanda’s fiancée, thereupon to drive a wedge between Mike and Amanda’s burgeoning romance, but also to further distract Amanda while he, Frankie, plotted how best to dispose of her.

Now, Inga repents for her involvement in Margaret’s murder and gives Mike the anklet. But after Mike leaves her apartment, Madson arrives, smothering the old woman with a pillow. In the unpersuasive, and thoroughly inconsequential finale, Mike hurries to Amanda. She, alas, doesn’t entirely believe his story, and worse, wounds him in the leg with the gun Madson gave her, presumably, for her own protection. Madson appears, exposing his true identity to all. Amanda desperately tries to fire another shot. But the gun jams and Madson, seemingly prepared for just such an occasion, knocks her unconscious, placing a pair of scissors in her hand, presumably to stage another murder/suicide scenario. At this moment, Mike stirs and jams the scissors into Madson’s leg, wrestling the gun away from his attacker. For no apparent reason, Pete now arrives on the scene and, misconstruing the struggle, tackles Mike. But as Madson, truly insane, prepares to finish the couple off, Amanda regains consciousness and stabs him in the back with the scissors. Wounded, but still crazy, Madson rages at Mike, who now positions one of Amanda’s sculptures so Madson is impaled on its jagged edges. A liberated Amanda crawls to Mike. The two embrace, with a superimposed image of Roman and Margaret similarly engaged, presumably gleaned from a happy snapshot of their otherwise ill-fated lives.

Dead Again was well received by most critics in 1991, and, in fact, proved a solid box office performer, doubling its $15 million budget and then some, finishing with an intake of $38 million worldwide.  Indeed, no less an ‘authority’ than Roger Ebert praised it as hailing from the very best time-honored precepts and traditions once afforded an Orson Welles or Alfred Hitchcock. Alas, in viewing the picture today, Dead Again appears to suffer more from Branagh’s investment in its grand theatricality than to thrive on it. But Dead Again never rivals Hitchcock, nor does it even rise to the cheapened level of paying the master through rank homage. Rather, the picture becomes a hodge-podge of extremes and excesses – bits, stolen from the very best efforts of a true auteur like Hitchcock, but without even the competency to reassemble them into a reasonable facsimile in the present. Branagh is too ambitiously clever for his own good, sacrificing intellect for artifice and perfunctory male/female exchanges in lieu of any genuine romantic chemistry. While Dead Again isn’t a ‘train wreck’ altogether, it is a misfortunate miscalculation of the principles that are supposed to come together to create a meaningful and memorable noir-styled thriller. Perhaps the greatest hurdle for Branagh is Scott Frank’s straight-forward screenplay, leaving little to the imagination, and forcing Branagh to invent, delay and derail its rudimentary plot with mere filler scenes, presumably to infer a far more complicated and fascinating tale of revenge than it actually is. Instead, this baroque logjam, while paying homage to the forebears of noir, never entirely ventures into establishing enough ‘new’ territory into which all this heedless/needless elemental escapism for a good, dark scare, is entirely unleashed to our satisfaction. In the final analysis, Dead Again is a movie that dies on the vine, or perhaps, more apropos, at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, far too long before its final fade to black. Slow curtain in the end.

Those who regularly frequent this blog will recall I had officially sworn off buying any more Blu-ray’s from Australian import brand, ViaVision and their exclusively marketed Imprint line-up, owing to what I would consider a rather shameless marketing ploy, offering immaculately packaged but thoroughly substandard 1080p up-rezed transfers that barely rate a step up from their tired old DVD counterparts and, occasionally, look that much worse. I stand behind this assessment, having now had the misfortune to buy and own their Blu-rays of No Way to Treat A Lady, A Place in the Sun (shamelessly marketed as a ‘new’ 4K scan, and looking just awful), When Worlds Collide and The Day of the Locust (one of the irrefutably worst-looking hi-def offerings ever!). Dead Again was purchased, therefore, not as an addition to my library, but as a gift for a friend who adores this movie and could not wait to pop it into their home theater for a viewing to which yours truly was privy. Remarkably, Dead Again seems to have dodged the slipshod efforts put forth thus far by Imprint. Indeed, this 'region free' 1080p image, while hardly perfect, appears as though some care has been paid to it by Paramount – the custodians licensing it to ViaVision for this hi-def debut. Again, Paramount has provided this third-party distributor with a scan derived from a print, not an original camera negative. Age-related dirt and scratches intermittently crop up. But otherwise, the image is impressively refined, with the ‘present day’ sequences sporting bright splashes of color. Film grain can appear slightly tinged with a digital harshness in more darkly lit scenes. The artificially blown-out contrast during the flashbacks in B&W is in keeping with the original intent of Matthew Leonetti’s cinematography.  Overall, no real complaints with the image, other than it ought to have been sourced from an original camera negative and cleaned-up to remove the age-related anomalies.

There are two audio tracks, a DTS 5.1 and PCM stereo. Each favors Patrick Doyle’s score with appropriately elevated bursts of orchestral flourish. Dialogue is crisp and natural sounding, and SFX are well placed throughout. ViaVision has ported over the two audio commentaries that were available on Paramount’s old DVD from 2002. The first, features Branagh whose breezy intellect and engaging reflections are a pleasure to listen to; the second, from producer, Lindsay Doran and screenwriter, Scott Frank – less so. At barely 15 minutes, Ian Mantgani’s ‘A Cut Above: Dead Again and the Lost Art of the Hollywood Thriller’ is a Criterion-esque visual essay that never goes beyond the hook and worm stage in discussing the movie’s general importance and place within the pantheon of noir-styled thrillers. ViaVision has also provided us with a badly worn original theatrical trailer. Bottom line: Dead Again is a diverting, but not entirely successful thriller, with Branagh wearing his ambitions rather than his heart on his sleeve. The Blu-ray rates adequate competency for those who love this movie, and, with caveats already discussed, should provide a solid viewing experience. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

2