White Noise Review
by Michael Dequina (mrbrown AT iname DOT com)February 1st, 2005
_White_Noise_ (PG-13) * (out of ****)
As if being the very first wide release of the movie wasteland known as January didn't already make it critical cannon fodder, not only does the title of _White_Noise_ provide more easy ammunition, so does the name of the director. Geoffrey Sax? Geoffrey sux. But there's no stronger ammunition than the film itself, a tedious and thrill-less thriller that does indeed, for lack of a better description, suck. At the center of the film is the purportedly real Electronic Voice Phenomenon (or "EVP"), in which messages from the dead can be received through electronic static on televisions or radios, and this intriguing concept could serve as foundation for a film that serves as both an insightful exploration of the phenomenon and a creepy chiller. However, Sax and writer Niall Johnson have somehow made a film attempting that yet making the two approaches feel mutually exclusive and pleasing just about no one, neither the viewers looking for a thoughtful supernatural enterprise nor those out for a good scare.
Most of the film is one long slog in which widowed architect Michael Keaton (lending the silly proceedings more credibility than they deserve) watches and listens to tape upon tape of the titular white noise for some sign from his recently departed "international best selling author" (as is repeatedly drilled into our collective heads) wife (Chandra West). Despite all the time spent watching Keaton attempting to make use of EVP, Sax and Johnson make precious little effort to explain the basic logistics of the phenomenon--for example, on what channels/stations must one tune one's televisions and radios?--making for some truly tedious viewing. Only by the final third do they remember that the film is also supposed to be a thriller, and Keaton suddenly receives ominous visual messages that reveal that the dead apparently speak in the language of movie one-sheet iconography: shadowy walking figures (_Dawn_of_the_Dead_); a silhouetted profile of a man's face (_Mission:_Impossible_); a frightened, ghostly looking-figure screaming with their hands reaching out (_The_Relic_). But not even that prepares one for the head-slapping stupidity of the finale, which would only satisfy those who had a perverse desire to see those evil, hell-dragging spirits in _Ghost_ blow open a few cans of whoop-ass.
©2005 Michael Dequina
Michael Dequina
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