Blood & Wine (1996) ( Blood and Wine )

Blood & Wine (1996) (DVD) (*)

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Alternate Title: Blood and Wine
Screened, competed or awarded at:
San Sebastian International Film Festival

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital Stereo )
Spanish ( Dolby Digital Stereo )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Spain ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
96 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1996 and produced in:
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Bob Rafelson

Written By:
Nick Villiers
Bob Rafelson

Actors:
Jack Nicholson ..... Alex Gates
Stephen Dorff ..... Jason
Jennifer Lopez ..... Gabriela 'Gabby'
Judy Davis ..... Suzanne
Michael Caine ..... Victor 'Vic' Spansky
Harold Perrineau Jr. ..... Henry
Robyn Peterson ..... Dina Reese
Mike Starr ..... Mike
John Seitz ..... Mr. Frank Reese
Marc Macaulay ..... Guard
Dan Daily ..... Todd
Marta Velasco ..... Gabriela's Cousin
Thom Christopher ..... Jeweller #1
Mario Ernesto Sánchez ..... Artie, Fishing Ace
John Hackett ..... Gas Station Attendant

Synopsis:

Jack Nicholson reunited with director Bob Rafelson, director of Five Easy Pieces and The King Of Marvin Gardens, for this violent, downbeat crime drama. Alex (Jack Nicholson) is a wine dealer whose business is going belly-up, along with his life. His step-son Jason (Stephen Dorff) hates him, his wife Suzanne (Judy Davis) has a drinking problem and is the constant target of Alex's abuse, and Alex is having an affair with Gabriella (Jennifer Lopez), a domestic worker from Cuba. One of the people that Gabriella cleans for has a diamond necklace worth several million dollars locked in a safe in a bedroom. Desperate for a quick score to get himself out of debt, Alex sees a opportunity for a lot of fast money and hooks up with Victor (Michael Caine), a career criminal who knows how to open safes but is desperately ill with tuberculosis. Nicholson and Rafelson first worked together on the film Head, starring The Monkees (Nicholson only had a bit part, but he also wrote the screenplay and was credited with producing the soundtrack album).

Bob Rafelson returns to the style of filmmaking he helped popularize in the '70s with Five Easy Pieces (1970) and The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) with an extraordinarily well-acted, if conventional, noir thriller. The director referred to those earlier films in describing this as the concluding piece of a trilogy, but unlike the young, unsettled characters Jack Nicholson played in those films, the bitter, misanthropic wine merchant he essays here is long past redemption. Much the same could be said for his partner in a planned jewel theft, Michael Caine, a veteran yegg whose volatility is always threatening to destroy their ad hoc union. Throw in the businessman's justifiably venomous wife (Judy Davis), her mysteriously sullen stepson (Michael Dorff), and the sexy mistress (Jennifer Lopez), who has an eye for Dorff, and one begins to understand his stress. Nicholson sheds his pet mannerisms and digs into a very dark corner of himself for this memorably ugly character, and Caine matches him every step of the way. The two seem to thrive on carving each other up, and their energy adds texture and weight to an otherwise predictably noirish tale of self-immolation. Davis is again superb in the somewhat limiting part of a wronged wife, and the two younger actors are saddled with even more tangential characters.

Bob Rafelson has stated that this is the final part of an informal trilogy he started with 'Five Easy Pieces' and continued with 'The King Of Marvin Gardens'. In the three, Nicholson has now played son, brother and father. In this one, Nicholson is a wealthy wine dealer who has distanced himself from his wife with his philandering and from his son with his negligence. After he steals a diamond necklace with the help of a safecracker partner, Victor, things start coming apart. His wife sets out to interrupt what she thinks is another one of his weekend dalliances, but is really his trip to pawn the jewels.

This product was added to our catalog on Sunday 09 March, 2014.