Flesh and Bone | | Cast : | Dennis Quaid, James Caan, Meg Ryan | | Director : | Steven Kloves | | Studio : | Paramount Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | November 05, 1993 | | DVD Released Date : | August 19, 2003 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON | Customer Reviews
| Rating |     | | Date | December 31, 2004 | | Summary | Enormously underrated | Content
 | Flesh and Bone is an evocative, haunting and rewarding study of a drifting man (played with understated, heartbreaking perfection by Dennis Quaid) who encounters a lost soul (Meg Ryan, outstanding)leaving a violent marriage and begins a tender relationship until a dark figure from his past shows up.
Plotted an as slow burning thriller, this is really more of a complex and intriguing character study of guilt, father-son ties, violent crime and doomed love. Flesh and Bone is a bleak but supremely well crafted film that reaches a truly sad (though inevitable) conclusion. The final moment between our two main characters is incredibly moving (in a very unsentimental sort of way) and a scene that I will never forget. I didnt mind the major plot twist as its no more unbelievable that a dozen of Hollywood's most praised suspense thrillers. The spare, atmospheric photography (set in a desolate, bleak Texas) is exceptional and Thomas Newman's suberb score will get under your skin.
For those who wont something altogether deeper, affecting and more emotionally satisfying with their thrillers (or love stories), Flesh and Bone should be ripe for rediscovery. |
| Rating |   | | Date | October 23, 2004 | | Summary | STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE | Content
 | Director Steve Kloves manages to make Texas look both gorgeous and desolate. Thomas Newman's score is haunting and evocative; Dennis Quaid, James Caan, Meg Ryan and Gwyneth Paltrow offer complex, fleshed out performances. What destroys the film in my opinion is its listless pandering, its inability to focus on the truth of the issues and its ambiguous and unfulfilled ending. FLESH AND BONE also pulls a big coincidence that manages to be both improbable and unbelievable. Kloves "twist" is predictable from the moment Meg Ryan appears on the screen, and the inevitable confrontation between Quaid and Caan is also telegraphed a mile away. In spite of its good performances and atmospheric direction, FLESH AND BONES is empty and pointless. |
| Rating |     | | Date | March 23, 2004 | | Summary | ... | Content
 | What I like so much about "Flesh and Bone" is that it's so unlike most other Thomas Newman scores but it also predates the movies we have came to love like "The Green Mile", "Shawshank Redemption", "American Beauty". Up to that point Thomas had not quite formed a style that we could distiguish him with, that would indentify him with the movies he scores. He beautifully captures the mood and atmosphere with melancholy and sadness and at the same time disturbing and haunting. Not a typical Hollywood score when instruments such as autoharp, bowls, bells, mandolin, marxaphone, bowed string, processed dulcimer, steel guitar, rod and plate assembles, birds, insects and vehicles along with the orchestration are heard. There is a ambience within the music that blends so well with the setting of the movie, the wheat fields of Texas. |
| Rating |      | | Date | July 05, 2003 | | Summary | Magnificent | Content
 | This is perhaps Meg Ryan's best role as she delivers a truly emotionally scarred and self-forgotten Kay. Ryan's portrait of her character is so real it's scary. Dennis Quaid is also on one of his best performances, though at the end seems a little off, but not by far. Excellent work. Gwyneth Paltrow is memorable as she blends into the story so naturally and sharply that eventhough her character is vague in the storytelling, she shines like a true star. James Caan is scary. He acts so naturally that you wonder if the guy is really like that. He is a solid good artist. Bottom line: everything comes together (acting, story, photography, pauses) to produce a unique and rare jewel of a movie. If you like movies that make you think and reach deep into the soul, you gotta see it (and probably own it, I know I do). |
| Rating |      | | Date | July 05, 2003 | | Summary | Magnificent | Content
 | This is perhaps Meg Ryan's best role as she delivers a truly emotionally scarred and self-forgotten Kay. Ryan's portrait of her character is so real it's scary. Dennis Quaid is also on one of his best performances, though at the end seems a little off, but not by far. Excellent work. Gwyneth Paltrow is memorable as she blends into the story so naturally and sharply that eventhough her character is vague in the storytelling, she shines like a true star. James Caan is scary. He acts so naturally that you wonder if the guy is really like that. He is a solid good artist. Bottom line: everything comes together (acting, story, photography, pauses) to produce a unique and rare jewel of a movie. If you like movies that make you think and reach deep into the soul, you gotta see it (and probably own it, I know I do). |
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