Film noirs may have been an American invention back in the 1940s -- albeit not really recognized as such until a few decades later -- but it's fallen to an Australian home video label to collect and celebrate the genre's seedier cousin, the neo-noir.
These films subvert and twist the traditional noir by ramping up the sex, violence, and psychological darkness and they ran rampant through cinematic alleyways from the 1970s into the early 2000s.
Imprint Films began releasing their After Dark boxsets back in 2022, each one collecting six films capturing Hollywood's embrace of stories about obsession, betrayal, immorality, lust, and murder. You know, the good ol' days. Today's filmmakers and studios have grown far too tame by comparison, but these sets focus around the 1990s to deliver mean-spirited and darkly entertaining thrills.
After Dark Collection Four brings six more neo-noir gems home in a sturdy box containing a slick hardback book featuring photographs and new essays on each of the films. It's another winning collection, and once again, the only real knock against it is the pricing.
The collection itself starts with the 4K UHD debut of 1993's Unlawful Entry. Big stars, paranoid fears, and a heavy scent of ACAB make for a fun, suspenseful time.
Michael (Kurt Russell) and Karen (Madeleine Stowe) are a happily married couple in Los Angeles whose scary run-in with a burglar leads to them meeting a cop named Pete (Ray Liotta). The three become friendly, but it soon becomes clear that Ray is off his rocker. He's become obsessed with Karen and has decided that the only way he's going to get her is to get Michael out of the way first.
Director Jonathan Kaplan crafts a tense thriller built on the paranoid fears of a suburban couple faced with the threat of urban violence. The film teases a racial divide with the white couple terrorized by a black intruder, but the threat instead comes from the man in blue. It's a cautionary tale of sorts that reminds us how the system can fail both good and "bad" citizens alike.
Russell and Stowe are both very good here. He's a man struggling with his role of provider and protector, and she's a supportive wife fueled by her own strengths. Both are overshadowed, though, by a tremendously psychotic performance by Liotta. He's a madman, but Liotta makes him emotionally compelling at the same time -- he's essentially Cujo, a lug of a man who only wants to be loved but is driven mad from within. He's a bad guy because he's nuts, but does that mean he needs to be put down? (Yes, yes it does.)
Imprint's release of Unlawful Entry includes the film on both 4K UHD and Blu-ray with the former disc featuring a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision. The transfer looks fantastic with crisp details partnering with bold colors, and the film's numerous nighttime scenes offer deep, dark shadows. The new transfer retains enough of the original grain as well.
The 4K disc includes an archival commentary from director Jonathan Kaplan, while the Blu-ray features additional older interviews and featurettes. Imprint's Blu-ray also adds three recent interviews with Kaplan, director of photography Jamie Anderson, and film music historian Daniel Schweiger. Kaplan's genre contributions go back to the 1970s, and his thoughts here on a handful of his films are rarely less than interesting.
Next up is David Lynch's Wild at Heart, and I'm going to admit right at the start that I remain in the minority on this one as a Lynch agnostic. When he works for me, he works -- first season of Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, The Straight Story -- but when he doesn't it's typically because I've disassociated with his stylistic choices.
Sailor (Nicolas Cage) is a moody, heart on his sleeve kind of guy who happens to be in love with Lula (Laura Dern). Unfortunately for them, her mother (Diane Ladd) is doing everything in her power to keep them apart, up to and including trying to have Sailor killed. The young lovers hit the road, but an eclectic collection of troublemakers is hot on their trail.
Lynch is Lynch, and he is making some very Lynchian choices with Wild at Heart from the very start. From the opening head bashing accompanied by Lula's wailing of "Sailor!" to the end appearance of The Good Witch (Sheryl Lee) in a floating bubble, this is Lynch fully embracing his stylistic approach at every turn. It stands apart from most other cinematic offerings for that reason alone, but while respectable, it's also more than a little off-putting and obnoxious. Again, just my opinion and I know I'm nearly alone in this.
Cage, Dern, and Ladd all give themselves fully over to Lynch's vision, and they're not alone, as the supporting cast is equally strong and willing. Willem Dafoe, Harry Dean Stanton, Isabella Rossellini, and a whole host of Twin Peaks regulars make for a who's who of talented, recognizable faces, and they're all giving their all to the noirish nod to love, violence, and The Wizard of Oz.
Imprint presents a previously available HD presentation of Wild at Heart, and while it includes several archival extras, it also adds some compelling new supplements. Producer Monty Montgomery provides a commentary track filled with production tidbits, and we also get new interviews with Dafoe and editor Duwayne Dunham. The Dafoe interview, in particular, is a great watch as he's always a fun and fascinating speaker and shares some entertaining bits here about the character he plays and working with Lynch.
Like any collection of films, the titles in After Dark Collection Four represent something of a mixed bag. There are highs and maybe some lows, but the undeniable -- and underrated -- pinnacle of the set is Roger Donaldson's 1994 remake, The Getaway.
Doc (Alex Baldwin) and Carol (Kim Basinger) are a pair of married, gun-toting lovers who've hit a rough patch. Their latest job has landed Doc in a Mexican prison, and it's up to Carol to sleep with the enemy (James Woods) to get him back out again. Doc doesn't know the lengths she's gone to in order to free him, and he finds out at the most inopportune time -- after completing a dangerous and deadly job for that same prick.
Jim Thompson's novel The Getaway previously hit screens back in the early 1970s from director Sam Peckinpah with real-life couple Steve McQueen and Ali McGraw taking the lead. It's a good, troubled film, and it's surpassed at every turn by this 1994 release. Baldwin and Basinger were also a real-world couple at the time, and their chemistry is as sweaty as it is electric.
The two of them alone, whether they're talking, shooting, or coupling in the sexiest ways possible, make this film worth watching as they portray a husband and wife at a crossroads. Her "infidelity" -- she's slept with another man, but it was a necessity to free her husband -- hits him where it hurts... right in his fragile masculine ego.
Watching Baldwin and Basinger traverse that emotionally charged terrain is equal parts painful and thrilling, and seeing them reconnect afterwards -- physically, intimately, completely -- is incredibly satisfying. Adding in some terrific action, a killer supporting cast (Woods, Michael Madsen, David Morse, Jennifer Tilly, Richard Farnsworth), spectacular squib-work (both blood and otherwise), and Donaldson's expert direction results in a movie that lands far better than its reputation suggests.
Imprint's new Blu-ray uses an existing HD print and looks incredible. As sharp as it is atmospheric, this is a beautifully shot thriller. The extras are all archival, including both interviews and featurettes, but the highlight is a terrific commentary track from film critic Travis Woods. He loves the genre and the film, and he speaks to both with intelligence and insight.
The fourth film in the collection is reminder that studios used to throw money at the wall to see what sticks. In 1996, that money went towards a big budget, big swing homage to 1950s Los Angeles and the crime-riddled noirs of the period. Mulholland Falls is overflowing with talent, both on screen and off, but it's frustratingly never quite as great as that roster suggests.
A young woman is found dead in Los Angeles, pancaked into the ground as if she had fallen from a great height. Det. Max Hoover (Nick Nolte) heads up the LAPD's most effective and feared police squad, but this case threatens to break apart his team and his entire life.
Lee Tamahori's Mulholland Falls has an absolutely stacked cast. Just look at these names -- Nolte, Melanie Griffith, Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Treat Williams, Jennifer Connelly, Andrew McCarthy, John Malkovich, Rob Lowe, Kyle Chandler, Louise Fletcher, Bruce Dern, William Petersen, Titus Welliver, and more. They're all doing good work here alongside every other department from production design and costuming to editing and composing.
Still, though, those pieces just don't come together as well as they should. The cop squad -- the same real-life one dramatized in 2013's Gangster Squad -- are tough guys who see themselves above the law they're sworn to protect, but dark secrets, organized crime, and government conspiracies combine to put them in their place. It's all engaging enough in small bursts, but the whole fails to take hold. Curiously, L.A. Confidential hit screens the following year and did every single thing better.
Imprint's HD presentation looks good with sharp detail and color, and the disc includes some archival extras, including a featurette and interview. There are two new extras here, too, including a commentary by Ryan Verrill and Will Dodson and a video essay by critic Dr. Clayton Dillard.
Arguably the least noirish title in the collection is 1996's Freeway. Matthew Bright's film is instead a dark fairy tale -- think an R-rated "Little Red Riding Hood" -- and it's a fantastically fun ride.
Vanessa (Reese Witherspoon) is looking for her grandmother's house, but the journey is fraught with danger. Los Angeles is a frightening place to be for an innocent young girl, and it only gets worse when she comes face to face with a big, bad man named Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland). He wants to do more than eat her, but she's far from the helpless lass that he thinks she is.
Sex, violence, foul language, perversion, and bad manners are at the forefront of Freeway, but all of it is in service of a very funny romp. Sutherland becomes a snarling, villainous delight who gets more and more flustered by his intended prey's resistance. Witherspoon, meanwhile, is absolutely hilarious. She's a sassy delight with a bad attitude, and she's not interested in taking shit from anyone. Its crass joys won't be to everyone's tastes, but those of us on its wavelengths are guaranteed to enjoy its weirdly entertaining thrills.
The HD presentation looks good, but it's worth noting that Vinegar Syndrome released a terrific 4K UHD upgrade of Freeway recently. Major fans will want to seek out that fully loaded release, but casual lovers should be happy with Imprint's Blu-ray. The extras are all archival, but they're plentiful and informative, too.
The sixth and final movie in the After Dark Collection Four boxset is probably the least seen of the bunch. John Irvin's City of Industry is a tale as old as time, as a group of thieves commit a heist, only for one of them to double-cross the others for the money.
Roy (Harvey Keitel) arrives in Palm Springs to help out his younger brother (Timothy Hutton) with a little robbery. It goes off without a hitch, but one of the crew (Stephen Dorff) decides to take it all for himself, leaving Roy's brother dead in the process. It also leaves Roy pretty pissed off.
City of Industry is a Parker-adjacent tale that executes its story with conviction, a bit of style, and a terrific lead performance by Keitel. He's the elder statesman here, and he's absolutely crushing it with an angry determination. Lucy Liu, Famke Janssen, and Michael Jai White are along for the ride, as is an unexpected Elliott Gould as a money man working with the Chinese syndicate, and they all add to the atmosphere.
Irvin keeps the action to a minimum, but when it hits there's an immediate power to it. Brief bits of gun play or brawls keep the urgency up when needed, and the film's third act heads exactly where it needs to. This one's been pretty slept on over the years, and it's a highly recommended watch for fans of films like Point Blank and Payback.
Imprint's Blu-ray sports a strong HD image that does well to capture detail and darkness as morally bankrupt characters skulk both in and out of the light. Two commentary tracks are included, including a brand new one with the director, and while there are more than a few gaps, the anecdotes and information he does offer is interesting enough. Archival interviews and featurettes are joined by two new interviews, one with Janssen and one with composer Stephen Endelman.