Review of Mortal Thoughts

Introduction

Made in 1991, Mortal Thoughts stars Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Glenne Headly and Harvey Keitel. The film initially deals with the difficult subject of domestic violence but later unfolds into a tale of murder and lies.

Mortal Thoughts was directed by Alan Rudolph and co-produced by Demi Moore.

Demi Moore plays the best friend of Glenne Headly who is married to an abusive husband played by Bruce Willis (sporting a ludicrous moustache!). Following an abortive attempt by Headly to poison Willis, the three go to a fairground for an evening out, but during the evening Willis is killed. The women decide to dump the body and cover their tracks.

The story is told in a series of flashbacks whilst Moore is interviewed by a police detective (Keitel) who does not believe the version of events in her statement.

As the story unfolds there is a surprise development in the plot but I thought the ending was fairly predictable.

This film is described as a “psychological thriller” and as such offers mainly plot and dialog with little action to speak of.

Video

This DVD is an anamorphic transfer in 1.85:1 and contains 28 tracks.

In general the picture quality is average to good, however check out the scene in the hairdressers 10 minutes in – the camera pans past a man standing in front of vertical blinds – or rather a collection of squares resembling a man! Apart from this, there do not seem to be any encoding problems.

Films of this type do not rely of visual effects to tell the story and most scenes are played out in either Moore’s home, the police station or the hairdressers shop leaving little scope for large scale scenes.

Audio

The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Pro-Logic). This film would not benefit from a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix as the soundtrack contains mainly dialogue between Moore and Keitel/Moore and Headly. The centre channel is used almost exclusively with very little use of the front stereo channel and no rear channel action during the film

However, the dialog is clear at all times and given the type of film, it is crucial to be able to concentrate on the plot rather that soundtrack.

Features

The DVD contains a theatrical trailer for Mortal Thoughts and one for About Last Night, which also stars Demi Moore. There is also a very basic “Talent Profile” on Demi Moore, Bruce Willis and Alan Rudolph which is no more that a edited filmography. Subtitle and scene selection are also included. There is no DVD-ROM content.

Conclusion

The performances from the three main cast members are strong and at first the film held my interest, but I felt it had quite a predictable ending – so after about half-way through the film it was reasonably obvious what was going on which did not help prolong interest.

Given the lack of extras and only adequate picture and sound, in my opinion the film does not offer particularly good value for money, however the performances are good and fans of the genre should enjoy it.