Author: John Cusack

Brand: VVS Films

Format: AC-3

Release Date: 09-10-2012

Details: Product Description While investigating a gruesome double murder, police detective Emmett Fields (Evans) discovers that the crime scene mirrors the setting depicted in one of Edgar Allan Poe's (Cusack) works of fiction. Suspecting Poe at first, Fields ultimately enlists his help to catch the killer. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, the stakes are raised when Poe's true love, Emily Hamilton (Eve), is taken by the killer, sending the pair racing to catch a madman before the next story is brought to life. Amazon.ca That's Edgar Allan Poe himself, staggering around a tavern and challenging patrons to finish a simple line of doggerel they really ought to recognize: "'Quoth the Raven…' Anyone?" The only person croaking out a "Nevermore" is a Frenchman, wouldn't you know it. Such are the humiliations for poor Poe (played by John Cusack) in The Raven, an attempt to recast the tortured author as an investigator in a fiendish series of murders drawn from his own writings. He's enlisted by a Baltimore detective (Luke Evans, Immortals) to assist in the sleuthing, even though Poe would rather be drinking or wooing a fair maiden (Alice Eve), or probably both. (He doesn't seem to have a lot of time for writing.) This Sherlock Holmes-ian concoction might have worked if director James McTeigue had found a way to maintain interest in the actual storyline, but the movie's weirdly dull--even with a damsel in distress for the second half of the action, the characters are colorless and the direction mechanical. Cusack gives it his all, wrapping a sneer around a handful of one-liners that George Sanders might've enjoyed, but the gore and the quips sit uneasily together, in a desperate hunt for a proper tone. And while this kind of vehicle isn't expected to provide documentary reality, it must be said that the movie never convinces us this person is remotely close to the actual writer called Edgar A. Poe. The Raven couldn't handle that level of perversity. --Robert Horton

UPC: 777235016938

EAN: 0777235016938

Languages: English

Binding: DVD

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood