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Catch And Release [2007]


RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £2.39 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk

Jennifer Garner's lips grow more Angelina-esque every year. In the romantic comedy Catch and Release, Garner (Alias,13 Going On 30) plays Gray Wheeler, a young woman whose fiance dies unexpectedly before the wedding, leaving Gray unable to afford her home--so she moves in with her fiance's best friends, Sam (Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Dogma) and Dennis (Sam Jaeger, Lucky Number Slevin). But the presence of another old friend named Fritz (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood) leads to the unveiling of a secret: Gray's fiance had a child with another woman. Catch and Release lacks the clear story structure that most romantic comedies are built on, but trades it for a richer sense of the ambiguities of human relationships. Garner, though lovely and personable, is a bit bland--fortunately, she's surrounded by actors with all kinds of edges, including Smith (who shows an unexpected and uncloying earnest side), Fiona Shaw (from the Harry Potter movies) as the fiance's grieving mother, and Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), who demonstrates once again her powers as a fearless and surprising actress. Catch and Release is an uneven movie with a remarkably elegant visual style that sometimes clashes with the workman-like dialogue, but it can't be written off as the same old Hollywood claptrap. Though a happy ending is inevitable, the path it takes has some surprising turns and flashes of unexpected emotional depth.-- Bret Fetzer


surprisingly touching
Review date: 2008-11-17 Rating: 8 out of 10

I am happy to give this film a good review because I was not holding out much hope for it being brilliant. I really liked it though, it was gentle and touching without being a typical chick flick and there was a genuine feeling of sadness surrounding Jennifer Garner's widowed character. A good movie to make you appreciate life and all the people in it, friends and lovers.

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Reviews


Yet Another Tragically Underrated Film
Review date: 2008-06-21 Rating: 10 out of 10

Let me just start off by saying that this is the first review I have ever written on Amazon. What led me to make this change in my behaviour is simply the fact that after watching Catch and Release on Sky this week for the first time, I was so incensed by the sheer lack of praise for this truly wonderful film that I could not hold myself back.

I had not even heard of this film until a few months ago and certainly don't remember it being on at the cinema. After reading the bad reviews and criticisms aplenty directed at Catch and Release I watched it not expecting to like it but boy was I wrong.

Firstly, I can only imagine that this film was seriously under marketed, probably wrongly as a romantic comedy. It is not a romantic comedy. It is a lot of things with a little dash of humour in which makes you smile to yourself at times but IT IS NOT A COMEDY!

Remember Tremors, a cult classic? No one had even heard of that when it came out originally - sadly another undermarketed/mis-marketed film - but now it's huge and has spawned 2 sequels and a TV series!

Sadly, I fear that people expected this film to be different than it is. That simple misconception could well have been its downfall.

Has the general public become so numbed by films with massive explosions, copious amounts of violence and incessant swearing that we can no longer enjoy touching, emotional films like this one? Or is it that we are so used to the same old `rom-coms' that Hugh Grant and the like spew out year after year that we are scared to appreciate something with a different feel to it?

To put it simply this film is beautiful. It's moving, sad, romantic, painful, sweet, good natured and humorous at times and in the end it teaches us that there is hope. We eventually learn that life does indeed go on after the death of a loved one.

The film begins with a tragic funeral which we never really forget throughout the film, even though there is so much else to consider. The director manages the impossible - to create a heart-warming, tender film even in the presence of such sadness - and she pulls it off completely. In the hands of someone else it could have been such a mess but it isn't - it's simply brilliant. I only wish there were more films like this that didn't feel the need to blow everything up or beat the living snot out of the characters to gain an audience.

All the actors, especially of course the fantastic Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant, play their parts perfectly. The chemistry between the two main characters is palpable and really adds to the charm. These two actors have that rare knack of being able to portray a barrage of emotions perfectly just with their facial expressions and body language - a talent that many other actors lack. You know exactly what they are feeling and thinking without them saying a word and it hits you hard. The scene in the fishing hut, in the peace garden, is a prime example of this.

This film moved me greatly. It may sound harsh but seriously, you could only not enjoy this film if your heart is a shrivelled up prune and you have never known the feelings of loss, love, hope and the oh so heart breaking one of unrequited love.

It just makes me so sad that this film wasn't the hit it should have been and only hope that the writers, producers and director of Catch and Release know that there are some of us out there that loved it and hope for more like it.

surprisingly good
Review date: 2008-06-06 Rating: 6 out of 10

i really liked this, yes its sickly sweet,overlong and drags in the middle but as pure comfort cinema its perfectly fine, you know the ending within the first five minets but who cares

disappointing
Review date: 2008-01-20 Rating: 4 out of 10

I had high hopes for this movie being both a Kevin Smith and Jennifer Garner fan. Unfortunately I was sadly disappointed. The characters are irritating, the dialogue wooden and the story, though an interesting premise, lacks real depth.

That said Jennifer Garner is great and there are moments where you can see the film has potential, sadly it never develops.

Kevin Smith plays Kevin Smith. Only this time it is neither endearing or funny.

I wanted to love this movie but ended up entirely unmoved.

Looks better than it is
Review date: 2008-01-17 Rating: 6 out of 10

I was curious about this movie after being given Kevin Smith's book 'My Boring-Ass Life', in which he chronicles being offered a part in this movie, passing the audition and shooting the film. Never having seen Smith act in anything he didn't write, and not expecting much, my wife and I rented this.

In his book, Smith gallantly refrains saying anything critical about the story or about the finished movie, but the trouble is that it's not, in my opinion, a great story. Jennifer Garner's fiancé has died, and in the process of preparing a 'Peace Garden' in remembrance of him, the Garner character discovers that he's been paying 3 grand a month into an unknown bank account. Her effort to find out what it's all about leads to some not very surprising or interesting revelations about her dead fiancé.

I suppose part of the problem is that a lot of the story feels a bit secondhand. There's the dead fiancés best friends, one of whom is a tubby joker who secretly mourns his deceased buddy (stand up, Mr. Smith!), another of whom is secretly in love with Garner, and the last of whom is also secretly in love with her, as if one weren't enough. The dead guy's mum is a rich and rather stuffy woman who has a false sense of priorities which, we expect, will be corrected before the movie ends. There's a kooky flaky girl (Juliette Lewis) from the dead guy's past, who has an adorable kid (resembling the kid from Love Actually but slightly less cutesy). Finally, the guy who is presented at the start of the film as a philandering, selfish twit is of course the guy who she will end up with.

Another part of my problem is Jennifer Garner. I'm sorry to say this, cos I mean it as a compliment, but she just looks like she should be playing a professional hitwoman. Those cheekbones...those dark steely eyes...those broad shoulders and that vague impression she gives off that she could kill you with her bare hands...the woman is not physically made to be the vulnerable heroine of a movie like this. (She's great at silly comedy, mind. If only she were given more to do here.)

The other actors are all, well, fine. Fiona Shaw is nicely understated for a change as the dead guy's mum. But the question most people want to know is, can Kevin Smith act in other people's films?

The trouble is that you spend so much time watching him and wondering if he's any good or not that you fail to notice that, in fact, he is. I ended up deciding that if he hadn't been Kevin Smith, the guy who made 'Clerks' and 'Dogma', hilarious anecdotalist, fan of Ben Affleck, guy who keeps putting his mates in his films, I would have been thinking that one of the best things about this film was the funny fat guy. So, gold star to them for hiring him and him for doing a good job.

One more thing - it's at least half an hour too long, and ends about five times. Also - SPOILER ALERT! - Garner gets together with her one true love about half way through, so you sort of wonder why it didn't end then.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Timothy Olyphant
Darren Daurie
Juliette Lewis
Joshua Friesen
Jennifer Garner

Creators:
Jennifer Garner (Primary Contributor)
Juliette Lewis (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
EAN: 5035822848931
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2007-07-23
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 107 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: Dutch (Subtitled)
Language: Hindi (Subtitled)
Language: Norwegian (Subtitled)
Language: Finnish (Subtitled)
Language: Italian (Subtitled)
Language: Portuguese (Subtitled)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Danish (Subtitled)
Language: Swedish (Subtitled)
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)
Language: Italian (Dubbed)

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