White Noise Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)January 14th, 2005
White Noise
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
January 12, 2005
It doesn't happen often, but a movie star's appearance on a talk show convinced me to see his film. Michael Keaton's entertaining stint on Letterman was reason enough to give 'White Noise' a shot. We don't get to see Keaton very often anymore. A guy who can be so loose and funny on a talk show should be a major force in this business. How can the man who played 'Beetlejuice', 'Batman', and the wild & crazy kook from 'Night Shift'
virtually disappear from the movie scene, especially in leading roles? And why make a return to cinematic prime time in a schlocky horror pic?
At least Keaton seems to believe what he's saying and doing in White Noise. Maybe he's experienced this sensation in his day-to-day life and had to explore it in a movie. Whatever the case, Keaton (who can play manic, nice, dangerous, silly, etc.) is a pretty good choice to play a normal guy who starts to obsess about life beyond death. He doesn't go into hysterics, even when he probably has a right to. And for a while, the movie is worthy of him. He never loses his way, but the film (directed by Geoffrey Sax and written by Niall Johnson) just can't keep up with its star.
So anyway...about this white noise thing. That's the sound you can hear in radio or TV static. Some think this is a communique from the dearly departed. If you're really lucky, you can even see faint images on your boob tube. This story has a basis in truth (or so they say) and anyone who has heard something other-worldly when their radio isn't tuned in properly will be intrigued by this plot. Keaton is Jonathan Rivers, a wealthy architect who's happily divorced, has a son, and a beautiful young author wife, Anna (Chandra West). They have a blissful marriage, which in Movie World guarantees that she's headed for the morgue. Anna dies in a freak car accident, then Jonathan starts to hear her ghostly voice on his little beatbox...and in other strange places.
Rivers makes friends with both an Electronic Voice Phenomenon expert (Ian McNeice) and the EVP guy's best client (Deborah Kara Unger), then our hero invests in some expensive audio visual equipment of his own. Naturally, he's not interested in DTS or widescreen TVs. He just wants to communicate with his honey. And he has the skills to do it. He gets good fast...perhaps too good. Soon, Keaton's wife isn't the only one trying to break on through to the other side. Trouble is, some of the "other siders" are very angry. You'd think they'd cut Beetlejuice a break, but his constant recording and listening just keeps making them madder & madder. And THEN the story gets weird, credibility sails out the window, and saying more would be spoiling a crappy ending and its WTF climactic revelations.
There's some touching stuff here, though. Jonathan takes messages for local grievers who've recently lost a loved one. Keaton even resurrects his heroic Batman persona when the wife demands that he "GO NOW!" to this cryptic location or that one. So for the sake of the cinema, I'll buy the EVP stuff---otherwise, why bother paying a nickel to see the movie---but when supernatural idiocy overtook a fairly realistic tale, I was tuning out and wondering when the F/X-fest would end so I could get to work.
Here's a game I play with fright flicks. Watch the framing. If the director gives an actor a lot of breathing room on the left or right (especially in the 2.35:1 ratio), look to that empty space and you're bound to see something or someone pop up right there. And if you're lucky, they'll accompany this GOTCHA moment with a loud music stinger. Whee. Heads up for the old mirror gag too. When Keaton goes to the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet...well, I'll never tell. It didn't pay off the way I expected. Sax generally stays away from the banal shock tactics most directors seem to love. Major kudos for that. But even cheap scares would be SOME scares.
The best time to write a horror review is after you've seen the film, then slept for at least one night. You need to see if your memory of the flick can scare you when the lights go out and the mind can play its tricks. I didn't like 'The Ring' or 'The Grudge', but I can't deny that some of their freaky images stayed with me for a few nights. It's a disappointment to report that I slept like an old man in church last night. 'White Noise'
isn't scary at all and it wasn't even creepy enough to let this kid's imagination do nutty things in the dark.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
