I used to wonder why Dina Meyer was in almost nothing that I saw or heard of after StarShip Troopers. After seeing her appearance in D-Tox, I wondered a little more. Then I saw Unspeakable, and I need wonder no more. To call this a blemish on the resume of the entire cast and crew would be flattering. That a film studio, however independent or hard up for product, read this script and approved it would indicate that there is something incredibly wrong with the Hollywood system.
Dina Meyer plays some kind of psychiatrist who works for a group of advocates wishing to abolish the death penalty. She is basically the glue that holds this film together, because it has absolutely nothing else going for it. Lance Henriksen gets an extended cameo as her senior colleague, who thankfully gets very little to say here. It is Dennis Hopper, however, who gets the most serious beating in this farce.
Hopper has risen to fame in such roles as the sadistic policeman in Blue Velvet or the photographer in Apocalypse Now. In other words, as obnoxious characters that the viewer hopes will get killed in short order. In both of those films, he chewed up the scenery like he was suffering some kind of intestinal worm. By comparison, his performance here makes those ones look restrained. By the time his first scene is over, you will be asking what state leader in their right mind would hire this man to supervise a prison. In spite of Hopper's known tendency to overact, one can't help but lay most of the blame at Thomas J. Wright's feet.
The acting from everyone save Hopper, Meyer, and Henriksen is sadly reminiscent of daytime television. So too is the camera-work, where every frame seems to have a strangely underdeveloped tint that those who viewed Days Of Our Lives episodes from the 1980s will vaguely remember. In simple terms, the film screams cheapness with every fibre of its being, as does the DVD that I've seen it encoded to. If it wasn't for the fact that none of this was even remotely funny, Unspeakable could reside in the same schlock category as Manos: The Hands Of Fate.
The characterisation is another rotten point. Henriksen and Meyer get a couple of dimensions, but Hopper is so one-dimensional that he could have been played as well by a Lucasfilm computer. As he screams his tirades to all and sundry, one has to wonder if the character doesn't come from a hideous fantasy regarding the administrators of prisons dreamed up by a psychotic Michael Moore.
I gave Unspeakable a one out of ten. Don't even bother seeing it once. Its entertainment value is non-existent, along with its replay value. This is one of the few times I have wished for those hundred minutes back.
Dina Meyer plays some kind of psychiatrist who works for a group of advocates wishing to abolish the death penalty. She is basically the glue that holds this film together, because it has absolutely nothing else going for it. Lance Henriksen gets an extended cameo as her senior colleague, who thankfully gets very little to say here. It is Dennis Hopper, however, who gets the most serious beating in this farce.
Hopper has risen to fame in such roles as the sadistic policeman in Blue Velvet or the photographer in Apocalypse Now. In other words, as obnoxious characters that the viewer hopes will get killed in short order. In both of those films, he chewed up the scenery like he was suffering some kind of intestinal worm. By comparison, his performance here makes those ones look restrained. By the time his first scene is over, you will be asking what state leader in their right mind would hire this man to supervise a prison. In spite of Hopper's known tendency to overact, one can't help but lay most of the blame at Thomas J. Wright's feet.
The acting from everyone save Hopper, Meyer, and Henriksen is sadly reminiscent of daytime television. So too is the camera-work, where every frame seems to have a strangely underdeveloped tint that those who viewed Days Of Our Lives episodes from the 1980s will vaguely remember. In simple terms, the film screams cheapness with every fibre of its being, as does the DVD that I've seen it encoded to. If it wasn't for the fact that none of this was even remotely funny, Unspeakable could reside in the same schlock category as Manos: The Hands Of Fate.
The characterisation is another rotten point. Henriksen and Meyer get a couple of dimensions, but Hopper is so one-dimensional that he could have been played as well by a Lucasfilm computer. As he screams his tirades to all and sundry, one has to wonder if the character doesn't come from a hideous fantasy regarding the administrators of prisons dreamed up by a psychotic Michael Moore.
I gave Unspeakable a one out of ten. Don't even bother seeing it once. Its entertainment value is non-existent, along with its replay value. This is one of the few times I have wished for those hundred minutes back.