Review of Mean Season, The

Introduction

Where would we be without serial killers? For one thing, the world would be an infinitely better place, but Hollywood would be considerably impoverished. At times it feels as if every second film involves some psychopath on the rampage, and a detective racing against time and an ever-increasing body count to hunt him down. Done imaginatively or with high enough production values, and you get a classic like Se7en. The majority of such films though, barely rate movie of the week status. The Mean Season refers to that time of year when Florida is lashed by destructive storms and deluges. Releasing this film right now, when Florida is trying to recover from a hurricane that prompted the state`s largest ever evacuation could be construed as adding insult to injury.

Malcolm Anderson is a newspaper reporter for the Miami Journal, one who is becoming disillusioned by the constant desire for lascivious and exploitative headlines in the chase for a higher circulation. He`s considering moving to a nice peaceful small town paper, when he is assigned to cover the murder of a teenaged girl on a local beach. It appears to be yet another bloodstained headline that once again turns his stomach, when he gets a phone call from a voice purporting to be that of the killer, a killer who plans to strike again, and who wants Anderson to be his voice to the world. This could be Anderson`s chance for the big time and soon his head is spinning with the notoriety that his articles attract and the possibility of a Pulitzer. But the killer is angry at seeing the writer getting famous for his actions, and soon the Anderson won`t be writing the news, but making it.

Video

The picture on the MGM back catalogue release is distinctly unremarkable. A 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer that fail to impress in any way whatsoever. The image itself is clear enough to be watchable. It`s soft and grainy though, with the emphasis on softness.

Audio

Another Europe friendly disc means DD 2.0 soundtracks in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. There are plenty of subtitles to boot. The dialogue is clear enough, which I guess is all you can ask from this film. The only other noticeable thing is that the theme music belongs to the kind of thrillers that were made twenty or thirty years before this.

Features

I`m telling you telepathically what else is on this disc. Can you sense what I`m thinking? You`re not getting anything at all? Message received then.

Conclusion

I`ve been racking my brain, trying to find a way to summarise my feelings about The Mean Season without resorting to crude profanity. It really is abysmal. It`s a thriller by numbers, one that gets wheeled out every couple of weeks by Hollywood, either in yet another rehashed movie or as a storyline for a television series. Serial killer embarks on a spree, but wants notoriety and `respect`, so he calls our hero, usually a detective but not always, someone he can empathise with, someone he feels close to. They develop a relationship as more and more innocents drop dead, but then for some reason, killer will be betrayed by the confidante, and then the murders will become personal as he attacks the hero`s nearest and dearest. There has to be a climax where the hero catches and invariably kills the psychopath, finally add some suspense and a shocking twist to taste, and there you have it, a big whopping load of Bollocks!

Don`t get me wrong, done well this recipe can yield cinematic gems, it`s just that the majority of this stuff is identikit, by the numbers movie-making that I have seen far too often for my taste. Indeed, the only thing that seems to change is the vocation of the hero. He`s usually a detective, but can be a doctor, fireman, lawyer or as in this film, a newspaper reporter. The Mean Season follows the same well worn rutted path to mediocrity, and for some strange reason this film reminded me of an episode of Magnum, probably the last time I saw this story.

It`s not the fault of the actors, as Kurt Russell, Andy Garcia and Richard Jordan all do the best they can with the material. Joe Pantoliano has a small but memorable role as an amoral photographer, an early forerunner of paparazzi. What really sends this film down the pan is the absolutely woeful story. The killer gets Anderson`s home phone number and consequently his address. Any sane person would be spending the next few weeks in a series of motels, but not our hero, he and his girlfriend stay blissfully in place, chatting away to the killer whenever he phones, not even bothering to lock the doors.

It`s departures from reality like this that render this film one to avoid, otherwise it would be strictly average. The Mean Season is not an offence of criminal proportions, it`s just that you`ve seen this story before and it`s been done to much better effect elsewhere. Watch one of those films instead.