BAG OF BONES

While signing copies of his latest bestseller at a book store in the city, novelist Mike (Pierce Brosnan) endures a tiresome conversation with his "biggest fan" as his wife Jo (Annabeth Gish) takes from his side to get lunch from across the street.

On her return, Jo is suddenly knocked down and dies in Mike's grieving arms.

Following Jo's funeral, a devastated Mike is flanked by his brother Sid (Matt Frewer), who takes the revelation that Jo was pregnant when she died as evidence that she was cheating on Mike, and publicist Marty (Jason Priestley) - a man so fixated on the business that he's not above talking shop moments after witnessing Jo being buried.

Plagued by nightmares and writer's block, hitting the bottle hard and struggling to get out of bed on an afternoon, it's only when caretaker Bill (Peter MacNeill) with news that his late wife's old lakeside retreat is in need of repair, that Mike remembers he has somewhere to break away to.

And so, Mike heads for Dark Score Lake in the countryside - a place where he can rest and hopefully recover, while escaping from the outside world. Unfortunately the writer's block continues, as do the nightmares.

Increasingly vivid, they begin to feature a young girl in a red swimming costume and a blue Jo who beckons Mike with promises of more details he needs to learn about her untimely death.

This leads Mike to believe Jo's spirit is with him in their lakeside lodge. But is she the only spirit within those walls? Mike doesn't seem to think so.

One afternoon, Mike ventures out to the nearest town for lunch and is alarmed to find a young girl in a red swimming costume standing in the middle of a busy road. He rescues her and is thus introduced to her pretty mother, Maddy (Melissa George).

Though initially struck by Maddy, Mike is warned away from her by the town's locals. They reveal that she's fallen foul of her millionaire father-in-law Max (William Schallert), and that her daughter - Kyra (Caitlin Carmichael), who shares her name with the unborn child Mike and Jo had always hoped for - was almost murdered by drowning by her daddy Lance a short while ago. Something that Mike has also seen in his dreams.

Also visited repeatedly by the ghost of a black soul singer (Anika Noni Rose) while at the lodge, Mike certainly has a lot on his plate. No wonder he's not getting any writing done - between his dreams and his waking affairs, he's one busy man!

But how much of what Mike is experiencing at Dark Score Lake is real? Is his late wife giving him clues that threaten to reveal a traumatic secret from her past? Is he being used as a pawn in Max's attempts to steal custody of Kyra from Maddy? Was his wife having an affair at their lakeside retreat? Or, is Mike simply stark raving bonkers?

Mick Garris is probably best known as "that guy who directs adaptations of Stephen King stories". He helmed the TV mini-series of "The Stand" and "The Shining", along with big screen adaptations of SLEEPWALKERS and RIDING THE BULLET. When not loitering around King’s works, Garris has also been responsible for nondescript sequels (CRITTERS 2; PSYCHO 4) and even less remarkable television projects (random episodes of "Freddy’s Nightmares", "Amazing Stories" etc).

Here, he’s back on his favourite turf, filming screenwriter Matt Venne’s adaptation of the most successful American horror writer of all time’s 1998 novel. Forming my initial opinion on Garris’ previous track record, my hopes weren’t exactly high …

The fact that this was fronted by Brosnan gave me hope, however. Brosnan shouldn't be a viable proposition: he's always looked like a cheesy Kays Catalogue model. But just consider his CV. From gay hitman in THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, through playing Bond, Robin Williams' smarmy love rival in MRS DOUBTFIRE and even singing badly in MAMMA MIA, the trajectory of his career is an impressively bold and varied one.

Brosnan is indeed the best thing about BAG OF BONES. He anchors this otherwise wayward two-part made-for-TV production. The Irish-born actor is very good here, excellent in fact. Full of nuances, emotions and truth, his performance was a real eye-opener for me. Thank God he's in practically every scene.

However, Brosnan's committed performance can't carry this bloated, slick but hollow exercise alone. Despite being backed up by a credible cast - George is always a pleasant watch; Schallert makes for a formidable foe; it's fun seeing Priestley looking so rough - BAG OF BONES really works the viewer through its bum-numbing 156-minute running time.

Garris keeps the visuals slick and clean: perhaps a little too sanitised to register as horrific in the manner the melodramatic score suggests he's striving for. He's also fashioned the unfurling of events in such a manner that not much of it gels well in terms of narrative consistency. The first part of this thriller makes little sense. The second part flows a tad better, but still feels cumbersome as we're thrown through cliché after tired cliché (bodies rising from murky bathwater; sharp shocks that transpire to be nightmare visions; characters that may or not be real ...).

It looks like a TV serial, it feels like a TV serial. BAG OF BONES is proficient enough in technical terms but, true to Garris' track record, falls short of genuine thrills.

It's a shame, because there's a mystery at its core that in better hands could've been quite intriguing. And Brosnan's performance definitely deserved a better showcase.

Filmed on HD cameras, BAG OF BONES looks very nice on Sony Entertainment’s region 2 DVD. Presented uncut and in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the transfer benefits from anamorphic enhancement. Colour schemes and skin-tones are natural at all times; blacks are deep without blocking; clarity of detail is matched by an impressive sense of depth within the clean, crisp images on offer.

English 5.1 audio is robust and evenly balanced. 2.0 stereo mixes are also provided in French, German and Spanish. Optional subtitles are available in English (Hard-of-Hearing and dialogue-only tracks), Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Polish, Spanish and Turkish. Focussing a little on the English subtitle tracks, I found both to be reliably error-free and easy to read against any background.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the feature via 32 chapters. That's 16 chapters per episode...

The only extra on the disc is 4 minutes of deleted scenes. There are 4 in total, which are of no consequence whatsoever.

Echoing better King films of the past (THE SHINING, MISERY, even THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION), Garris' latest TV adaptation falls some way short of reaching any of their heights. It's watchable, but forgettable. Brosnan is great, but everything around him is hackneyed and trite.

Review by Stuart Willis