Plot Summary: Plot?
The DVD: This DVD had virtually NOTHING in the way of special features. Of course, neither did the movie.
One warning, though: If you're at the video store and casually glance across this movie's box, you might think it reads, "The Mathman Prophecies" and mistake it for a movie about the life of a Junior High School algebra teacher. Well, if you're looking for something that exciting, this isn't the movie for you.
The Story: I rented Mothman because my friend Phil told me the story of the red-eyed demon man-bug back when we were kids. Even as a youngster, I thought it sounded pretty stupid. After watching the movie, I realize I spoke from youthful naiveté: "pretty" stupid is an injustice.
The movie opens with a truly riveting scene of John Klein (Richard Gere) and his wife Mary (Debra Messing) house-hunting. Judging by their behavior, they have been married for approximately three minutes: when they found a house, Gere polishes the hardwood with Debra's back while their agent is still closing the deal.
The two then careen home at high speed, no doubt for more sweaty monkey-sex, only to run into a giant rubber bat that escaped from the Gilligan's Island archive. Mary hits her head and is rushed to the hospital, where doctors discover she has a brain tumor. They operate, but since they didn't want to muss her hair, they can't get all the tumor and she dies. Sorta.
Well, Klein manages to hold his own (so to speak) for two years. Then, while driving the 105 miles from D.C. to Richmond he ends up on the West Virginia/Ohio border, probably because he wouldn't ask for directions. There he meets insane, shotgun-toting Gordon Smallwood (a tragic name, that) played by Will Patton, who has the distinction of having been in this movie and Armageddon.
At this point, about a half-hour into the movie, literally dozens of words of dialog have been spoken. Yet director Mark Pellington decides to ramp up the pace even more (to "glacial"), creating incredible suspense through whooshy sound effects, weird camera angles, and interspersed cuts in slow-motion (which in this movie was kinda hard to tell from the rest).
Well, nothing much happens the rest of the time Klein is in Point Pleasant, WV, except that he meets cop Connie Parker (Laura Linney). So he rushes back to D.C. where nothing continues happening. Forever eliminating his credibility as a Washington Post reporter (or was that a non-sequitor?), he flies to Chicago to contact an expert in paranormal entomology and learns the truth: He's being stalked by none other than MOTHMAN! (No, not "The Moth" from Fox's short-lived series The Tick; this one isn't nearly as scary.)
Mothman, you see, lives among us, occasionally getting his jollies by leaving breathy phone messages about upcoming disasters. The professor warns Klein that Mothman is trying to lure him back to West Virginia to kill him. For reasons apparently better left unexplained, Klein decides to oblige and returns.
After another long, gut-wrenching scene in which nothing happens, Klein goes for a walk, only to discover his buddy, the shotgun-wielding maniac Smallwood, dead of boredom. Cop Connie, fed up with the paranormal goings-on, cries out, "I can't stand this!", speaking pretty much for all of us.
And we cut to another scene of Gere standing around his motel room, squinting in the mirror, no doubt wondering when his nose got so big. Ah, but if you watch carefully, you'll see that his reflection in the mirror--better sit down--doesn't quite match his movements! Yes, it's just like Bela Lugosi's shadow in Dracula. Well, except stupid and pointless.
Somewhere in here, his dead wife Mary returns (only maybe not), Klein drives back to Chicago to visit the paranormal entomologist so Director Pellington can meet his required movie length, and we find out Mothman's name is Indrid Cold (which is clearly an anagram for "Doc Rind Lid").
Nothing happens some more, so Klein goes back to D.C. (again) to drool over a photo of his wife's dead cleavage while waiting for her to call. (Don't ask me--I just watch this stuff.) Cop Connie calls him to lure him back to West Virginny because she's clearly infatuated with the whiny, marginally insane reporter, so we get yet another riveting scene of Klein driving while the cinematographer tries out new filters on the camera.
Gere gets back after dark, just in time to witness the collapse of the great Silver Bridge, which is the scene of a giant, Christmas Eve backup of cars pouring into beautiful Point Pleasant for the holidays. Cables snap, girders sway, more cables snap, concrete splinters, more cables snap, more concrete splinters, more girders sway, while the passengers sit in their cars and gape. The bridge eventually collapses, taking somewhat longer than it took to build in the first place. Amazingly, most of the drivers are still trapped in their cars, no doubt stymied by their child-proof door locks.
Cop Connie just happens to be on the bridge (surprise!) and plunges into the river. Klein sees this and bravely leaps into the warm, crystal-clear waters of the Ohio River in December. He swims to the well-lit bottom and pulls our unconscious civil servant to safety.
I think this is about when the movie ended, though it was rather hard to see through the glaze over my eyes.
One important note: This is based on actual events! Except the bridge collapse killed 46 people, not 36 as stated in the movie. I'm sure that's the only thing they got wrong.
Performances: Richard Gere displayed remarkable versatility, evolving all the way from a squinting, grinning, horny middle-aged man to a squinting, weeping, confused middle-aged man staring blankly into space (much like me by this time). If he had any dialog, I'm sure he would have delivered it convincingly.
The rest of the cast seemed much more believable, but maybe that's just by comparison. And kudos to Cinesite, who have now established themselves as a leading digital effects house by somehow giving Debra Messing cleavage.
Director Mark Pellington shows great daring, combining MTV-style cuts and filters, a 60's horror film soundtrack, and the action-adventure pacing of My Dinner With Andre to come up with a creation that was truly something. I'm just not sure what.
And as a musician myself, I would be remiss if I didn't give a nod to the film's closing song, "Half Light," which proves you can make a five-minute song using only the two notes of a minor 2nd interval.
But except for the opening scene and the closing song, and everything in between, it wasn't too bad. But it would have been nice to actually have seen Mothman at some point....