{"id":1729,"date":"2010-12-27T18:43:45","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T02:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=1729"},"modified":"2021-04-22T08:31:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-22T15:31:26","slug":"review-case39-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2010\/12\/review-case39-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Case 39 Blu-ray Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Case 39<\/em><\/strong> is a mess of a film and it\u2019s no wonder why it had a hard time finding a U.S. distributor for three years not to mention the reshoots. I can applaud Renee Zellweger for trying something different away from the safety of the comedy and drama genres, but the character was all wrong for her.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>
\nCase 39 (2010)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Genre(s): <\/strong>Thriller\/Horror
\nParamount | R \u2013 109 min. \u2013 $34.99 | January 4, 2011<\/p>\n

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MOVIE INFO:<\/span>
\nDirected by: <\/strong>Christian Alvart
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Ray Wright (written by)
\nCast: <\/strong>Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Ian McShane, Bradley Cooper<\/p>\n

Theatrical Release Date: <\/strong>October 1, 2010<\/p>\n

DISC INFO:<\/span>
\nFeatures: <\/strong>Featurettes, Deleted Scenes
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>1<\/p>\n

Audio: <\/strong>English (DTS-HD MA 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Portuguese (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
\nVideo: <\/strong>1080p\/Widescreen 2.35
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish
\nCodec: <\/strong>MPEG-4 AVC<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

THE MOVIE<\/strong> \u2013 2\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The tagline for the supernatural thriller Case 39<\/em><\/strong> is \u201cSome cases should never be opened.\u201d Well, there are some movies that should never be made… and this is one of them. This is a movie that is hard to take seriously but one that takes itself too seriously to be fun; it\u2019s stuck in a no-man\u2019s land where you\u2019re not quite sure if you should shudder or laugh.<\/p>\n

Case 39<\/em><\/strong> follows child protective service worker Emily Jenkins (RENEE ZELLWEGER) who is already overworked when her supervisor puts one more file, her 39thone, on her desk. For whatever reason, she takes interest in which a little girl, Lilith (JODELLE FERLAND), who is struggling in school, falling asleep in the middle of class and basically is believed is under some sort of abuse in the home by her parents. Emily decides to visit the house but doesn\u2019t find any outward signs of abuse outside the fact the parents are really weird \u2013 with the father being especially off balance \u2013 and Lilith is very quiet but also looking frightened.<\/p>\n

Emily knows something is up and when she gets a call in the middle of the night from Lilith in which she says her parents are about to kill her before dosing off (they had given her some sleeping sedatives), Emily calls up her police buddy, Detective Mike Barron (IAN MCSHANE), and frantically races to the house in which the parents are about to stuff Lilith into the oven preparing to burn the girl alive. Mike and Emily burst in just in time to rescue her and the parents are arrested.<\/p>\n

Through circumstances and Emily\u2019s good will in wanting to help Lilith, she volunteers and convinces a committee that she could provide the best temporary house for her until a good foster family could be found. She would learn that would be her mistake because Lilith is not who she seems to be with her charming personality quickly giving way to something far more sinister and soon Emily learns just why Lilith\u2019s parents were going through.<\/p>\n

Although I did say before I have a special distaste for movies with demonic or evil children at their core, I can still appreciate a well made supernatural thriller and I do see what director Christian Alvart and screenwriter Ray Wright were trying to do, but it was hardly successful on any level.<\/p>\n

First, there is a scene or two in which contains some unintentional comedy, with one that immediately comes to mind being Bradley Cooper \u2013 playing Emily\u2019s smug friend who is also a child psychologist \u2013 after a odd threat from Lilith later that night is in his bathroom when hornets suddenly come out of every pore of his body. Trying to get the madness to stop, he finally snaps his neck with his own hands. I know this scene probably scared a fare number of people out there, but I got a chuckle out of the whole thing; it had more cheese than scare.<\/p>\n

The other problem I had with this thriller was it just wasn\u2019t that scary, this is not to say there were a couple of moments that were set up well enough but those don\u2019t amount to very much and it all culminates with a lame ending that sums up the film well enough for me. As I said, I can appreciate a good, well crafted thriller but this was not one of them.<\/p>\n

As for casting, I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Renee Zellweger although I do think she\u2019s a capable actress so I can\u2019t place too much on her for a poorly scripted movie because even the greatest actresses working today would have a tough time with the role. She obviously has the innocent and kindness thing going for her and there were scene here and there that she was effective, just not enough to overcome the script.<\/p>\n

The supporting cast is pretty good although outside of Jodelle Ferland, they don\u2019t have a whole heck lot to do; that said I\u2019d call Ferland\u2019s performance more as annoying rather than scary. Now, I will give some credit to Bradley Cooper because he managed to avoid the way over-the-top ham-filled performance Nic Cage performed in The Wicker Man<\/em> remake with one that was just over-the-top, so well done Mr. Cooper, well done. The filmmakers also somehow wrangled the underrated\/underappreciated Ian McShane into the picture as well and while McShane does provide some weight, his character isn\u2019t all that meaningful or well written.<\/p>\n

Case 39<\/em><\/strong> was directed, quite ineffectively, by Christian Alvart who went on to also direct the sci-fi\/thriller Pandorum<\/em> which was released a month prior. Having not seen that film, I can\u2019t tell you whether or not Alvart is actually a good director, but based upon Case 39<\/em><\/strong>, I have to say he\u2019s not very successful. The biggest reason is that for a thriller\/horror film it\u2019s not very suspenseful and there is no momentum being built for the first half as the film tries to establish the story and characters.<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u2019s no wonder Case 39<\/em><\/strong> took 3 years to find a distributor in the United States (also explains why someone like Bradley Cooper had such a small role as it was pre-Hangover<\/em>) as it doesn\u2019t offers nothing new and more importantly it fails to provide any scares or thrills that a suspense-thriller should do for its audience.<\/p>\n

The tagline got it right: \u201cSome cases should never be opened,\u201d the Blu-ray\/DVD case being one of them…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 2\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Blu-ray doesn\u2019t come with many in-depth features and all are in SD.<\/p>\n

Filed Under \u201cEvil\u201d: Inside Case 39<\/em> (8:07; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 This is a typical EPK featurette where members of the cast and crew boast about how incredible the script was or how intense the movie is or will be. Yeah, no one will own up to this being a POC film…<\/p>\n

Turning Up the Heat on the Chill Factor (4:24; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 Here we get to look at the make-up effects work for some of the nightmare scenes, namely the burning scene where Lilith\u2019s mother (Kerry O\u2019Malley) has third-degree burns. I suppose this is the best of the bunch as it\u2019s at least somewhat interesting.<\/p>\n

Inside the Hornet\u2019s Nest (3:02; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 The featurette takes a closer look at the film\u2019s marquee scene (tongue firmly planted in cheek) and how it was shot. Of course, it features some sound-bites from Bradley Cooper and his thoughts on the scene.<\/p>\n

Playing with Fire (4:26; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 Similarly, this featurette focuses on the big house fire scene for the film\u2019s third act. It\u2019s just another short feature where the crew explains how they\u2019re going to shoot the scene on a sound stage.<\/p>\n

Deleted Scenes (30:06; SD)<\/span><\/strong> \u2013 There are an astounding 18 scenes including an alternate ending which wouldn\u2019t have made it better (or worse for that matter), though in fairness it is a different ending where the outcome of certain characters are different. The other scenes aren\u2019t great and probably could be skipped. These are presented in letterboxed widescreen.<\/p>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Case 39<\/em><\/strong> is presented with a 2.35 aspect ratio and in 1080p high-definition (AVC codec). The picture itself is uneven as some scenes look great with good detail level in faces and yet other scenes look a little muddier than anything else. The movie is fairly dark anyway so you\u2019re not going to get an abundance of colors but even so it\u2019s well balanced.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

AUDIO \u2013 3.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track isn\u2019t anything special and is actually a little too<\/em> low key early on as Michl Britsch\u2019s score doesn\u2019t provide much impact and even dialogue sounded a bit muffled at times. It\u2019s not until the third act where things do get cranked up a notch where the subwoofer kicks in providing some depth and even the sound effects were pretty good.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

OVERALL \u2013 2.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Overall, Case 39<\/em><\/strong> is a mess of a film and it\u2019s no wonder why it had a hard time finding a U.S. distributor for three years not to mention the reshoots. I can applaud Renee Zellweger for trying something different away from the safety of the comedy and drama genres, but the character was all wrong for her but most importantly, I\u2019m not entirely sure what actress could tackle and succeed in this movie. As for the Blu-ray, the audio and picture are not anything special, just good enough, while the features are short and don\u2019t delve too much into the actual filmmaking experience.<\/p>\n

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The Movieman<\/em>
\nPublished: <\/strong>12\/27\/2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Case 39 is a mess of a film and it\u2019s no wonder why it had a hard time finding a U.S. distributor for three years not to mention the reshoots. I can applaud Renee Zellweger for trying something different away from the safety of the comedy and drama genres, but the character was all wrong … Continue reading “Case 39 Blu-ray Review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[163,589,586,590],"class_list":["post-1729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","tag-bradley-cooper","tag-case-39","tag-ian-mcshane","tag-renee-zellweger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1729"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25774,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1729\/revisions\/25774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}