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Overall Rating : 5/10
Directed By : Mark Fergus
Guy Pearce (Factory Girl)
Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly)
William Fichtner (The Perfect Storm)
J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man 3)
Supplied By : Sony Pictures
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : November. 20, 2007
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| PLOT After his car breaks down in a desolate town, a slick salesman, Jimmy Starks, visits a fortune teller to kill some time. But the psychic's ominous reading sends Jimmy's life into a tailspin when he learns that his life will soon end, but he is safe at least, until the first snow of the season. Now, with his ultimate fate looming nearer, Jimmy becomes obsessed with revisiting his past in hopes of changing his destiny before it's too late. |
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| THE REVIEW FIRST SNOW tells the story of one man's journey to copy with the inevitability of death. Jimmy Starks is a floor salesman, whom isn't too happy with his current job situation, but has big plans to soon make big bucks by way of selling refurbished jukeboxes. When Jimmy's car breaks down, he pulls into the small desert town nearby. There he is told the work would take all day so - in the meantime he decides to have his fortune told by a trailer park's resident psychic all in harmless fun, and to pass up the time. The psychic makes several predictions before blacking out unexplainably during the reading - Jimmy doesn't make anything of it and later leaves. It's sometimes later that what the fortune tell had predicted comes true to life....all of it. So this compels Jimmy to return to the man and get him to give him the reason for the black out during the reading - from there the fortune teller tells him something dreadful. The man tells Jimmy that his life is nearing an end and it would ending the first snow of the season, but until then he would be fine. Starks then tries to sort out his life and get things in order and make amends with anyone he has wronged, all the while trying to figure out whether or not, the psychic's prediction is true - which sends him into a deep state of paranoia. Just looking at the plot of FIRST SNOW, one would believe that it was an ultra intense captivating story about death, and how it's bound to happen whatever choices we make in our lives. But in reality, for a film that had so much potential to be something deeply intriguing and filled with suspenseful moments that feed us numerous twists and turns that ultimately lead to an unpredictable end - is actually slow moving and quite predictable with not a possible slow in sight Don't get me wrong, the premise of FIRST SNOW is jus fine, as it shows how death is somehow unbeatable no matter how hard one tries to avoid it - here Jimmy tries to reverse his fate by essentially making things good with everyone whom he may have rubbed the wrong way. But Jimmy finds out that nothing of the sort will help his cause, and we watch as he struggles until the bitter end - but unfortunately the film movies at a snail's pace making us, the viewers feel as if we are struggling right along with him. With scenes such as this, I expected more ups and downs - more action if you will - but instead, it's a steady straight forward ride into eventual boredom after about the 45 minute mark - and when it's all said and done, the film's "off screen" ending does little to justify the slow pace that proceeded it. The acting is fairly decent, in fact FIRST SNOW has a great cast.(which makes it even more a letdown) In my opinion, the supporting cast of Piper Perabo, Rick Gonzalez, J.K. Simmons and William Fitchner, are far more enjoyable that the usually enjoyable Guy Pearce, whom is the film's centerpiece. Pearce has portrayed this type of role before, but it has been far more impressive - this time his character had to much of a calmness to him and not the sense of panic that was needed, and coincidently Pearce is capable of pulling off. FIRST SNOW, is a film that starts off promising, but slowly declines into an uneventful, only partially interesting character study of a man struggling with his foretold fate, with far too little suspense or excitement available to support it's subject matter. |
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| GORE
METER 1/10 One gunshot wound is about all. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 2/10 The score is very ambient, and is only barely noticeable through out, I barely remember it |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Honestly, with FIRST SNOW, since it is marketed as a "Thriller", I expected to get just that, but in my opinion it ended up being a lot less suspenseful than I expected. It's a decent story for the most part, but seems to drag and drag on until you're bored with it - the story, in my opinion just wasn't executed to it's fullest potential. If you have some time to kill, FIRST SNOW is an ok way to spend it, just don't expect to be blown away by it. This DVD will be released on November 20, 2007 |
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