![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/g/gift.jpg)
The Gift
Take a small, swampy Southern town, mix in an assortment of sexist redneck crackers, mentally disturbed paranoiacs, and K-Mart-clothes wearing gals with big hair, and you have the ingredients for an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger or the setting for The Gift — a psychological thriller from a screenplay by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson. The Gift stars Cate Blanchett as Annie, the town psychic who dispenses common-sense advice and serves as counselor and psychologist to those who come to have her read their cards. Her clientele include the seriously demented mechanic Giovanni Ribisi — who has some major father issues — and mousy abused wife Hillary Swank, who can't live with or without her bullying husband (Keanu Reeves). When local rich girl Katie Holmes disappears, the authorities — who have no suspects and no clues — turn to Annie in a last-ditch effort to locate the missing girl. Through her visions — and a few plot twists — Annie attempts to piece together answers to the girl's disappearance and murder. Director Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead, A Simple Plan) does an admirable job with a marginally adequate script, slipping only when he resorts to clichéd horror-movie "don't go in there" techniques as substitutes for more subtle, sophisticated filmmaking. The ensemble cast is solid, with fine performances by Swank (in her first role since her Oscar-winning performance in Boys Don't Cry), an electrifying Ribisi, and a terrifying Reeves. In addition, both Greg Kinnear as Holmes' fianc� and Gary Cole as the shady local D.A. are well cast and convincing. But what raises the film above mediocre is the outstanding work of Blanchett — an actress with a seemingly unlimited range, who here creates a sympathetic character both strong and vulnerable as well as riveting to watch. The Gift was a box-office disappointment and actually works better as a film to watch at home on a Friday night. Paramount's DVD is presented in anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Special features include an ass-kissing cast-and-crew interview segment, a theatrical trailer, and a music video of "Furnace Room Lullaby" performed by Neko Case & Her Boyfriends. Keep-case.
—Kerry Fall
