LOOKER - DVD review

Put it this way: Michael Crichton is a better writer than he is a director.

Not that he comes off too well in either category in "Looker," the 1981 sci-fi thriller he wrote and directed. It's supposed to be a dark satire on the way television commercials manipulate audiences, but it's really a fairly ordinary murder mystery that not even the talents of veteran pros like Albert Finney and James Coburn can save. "Looker" starts with some interesting ideas but doesn't take them very far before succumbing to typical Hollywood hokum.

The plot here involves three out of four young, female models who have had work done on them by a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Dr. Larry Roberts (Finney), turning up dead. These women were already "lookers," but they wanted to look even more perfect for their work in television. Their imperfections were small, and they all showed up with a detailed list of exactly the alterations they required. Although the newspapers report their deaths as suicides, the police suspect somebody may have murdered the women.

The prime suspect is Dr. Roberts, but Roberts believes the deaths may have something to do with a company called Digital Matrix, headed by a rich industrialist named John Reston (James Coburn) and his assistant, Jennifer Long (Leigh Taylor-Young).

True to Tinseltown crime thrillers since the dawn of pictures, Dr. Roberts goes off alone to solve the mystery and clear his name. Almost alone, that is. There is one more patient who is still alive, Cindy Fairmont (Susan Dey). In an effort to protect her, and find out more about Digital Matrix, Roberts takes her under his wing, making her think that he is interested in her romantically but really trying to solve the crime. Thus do the movie's two principal players go off on a totally unlikely caper together.

Inconsistencies and illogical turns of events plague the story from the outset. Roberts going it alone and mistrusting the police only further the interest of the police in him. Then there are monumental coincidences, even ridiculously bad aims from firearms at close range, that brand "Looker" as one of those things that could happen "only in the movies."

I have to admit that I noticed a lot of women's lingerie and not a few bikinis on display throughout the first half of the film, items that may take some viewers' minds off the fact that not a lot of anything else is happening during this period. The movie takes its own sweet time getting to the point, and even then it hardly seems worth it. Do the words "subliminal advertising" or "digital cloning" mean anything to you? Do hypnotism or those "little flashy things" the guys in "Men in Black" use to erase memories impress you? If so, you'll appreciate "Looker." You've got to give Michael Crichton credit for always being on the leading edge of technology, even if the substance of this film doesn't match the accuracy of its technological prescience.

The biggest problems with "Looker" are that it is neither funny nor suspenseful, with little that is satiric and the details of its central villainy revealed much too early on. While good storytelling is about making us care, "Looker" is so mechanical, I could have hardly cared less.

When left just to the writing chores, Crichton has done such things as "Jurassic Park," "Westworld," "Twister," "Timeline," and "Coma," all better pictures than "Looker." So, maybe he should have given over the directing of this one to someone else. Even the music, sets, and location shooting are dull. The movie is rated PG for brief nudity; otherwise, there is just a trace of profanity and violence involved. Too bad. Anything would have helped.

"Looker" is another of several winners in "DVD Decision 2006," an initiative co-sponsored by Warner Home Video and Amazon.com. The idea was to give movie fans the opportunity to choose their favorite WB titles for release on DVD, titles that had not previously been available on disc. The ten movies that received the most on-line votes were "Operation Crossbow," "The Illustrated Man," "Presenting Lily Mars," "Up Periscope," and "There Was a Crooked Man," which WB released in December, 2006, and "The Arrangement," "Band of Angels," "Gymkata," "Looker," and "Madame Curie," released in January, 2007.

Video:
The screen size for "Looker" comes off well. The film's original aspect ratio of 2.40:1 shows up on disc as close to 2.20:1, depending on your television. Also in its favor is a strong color depth and realistically natural hues, excluding a few facial tones that appear too dark. However, the video also exhibits a rough appearance, with some small degree of grain, some softness to the image, and some minor moiré effects.

Audio:
The audio engineers render the sound by way of an ordinary Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo. Beyond a few instances of background music, the left-to-right spread is mostly narrow, and like the video, the sound seems a little soft and compressed. Overall clarity and tonal balance are good, though, and residual noise is at a minimum.

Extras:
Michael Crichton himself is the major extra, with a four-minute introduction to the movie and an audio commentary. He seems like a pleasant chap with a creative mind, but he doesn't have much to say that we don't already know or couldn't have guessed. In addition, there are twenty-four scene selections but no chapter insert; theatrical trailers for "Looker" and "Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning"; English and French spoken languages; and English subtitles.

Parting Shots:
If Crichton meant "Looker" as a satiric comedy, as he says he did, it doesn't come off as a very pointed or very funny one, except at the very end. If he meant the film as a mystery, it isn't very much of a puzzle for the viewer, except to wonder why anybody had to kill the models in the first place. Well, you're right; you can't have a murder mystery without a murder. Simple me.