Review of River King, The

Introduction

A body of a young man is found frozen in the local river and local cop Abel Grey (Edward Burns) and his partner are sent to investigate. Whilst at the scene, Grey sees a mysterious young boy who disappears without a trace and whom his partner never saw. It turns out the dead boy is from the local Haddan boarding school, a kind of off-limits place to local people. Grey and partner investigate the circumstances leading to the boy`s death but are unable to find anything substantial.

Due to budget restraints, Grey is not sent the local photographer to take evidence pictures of the dead boy`s room, so Grey enlists reluctant teacher Betsy Chase (Jennifer Ehle) who just happens to be outside with her class doing photography. Chase finds strange smudges in her photos once she has developed them and rushes them over to Grey one evening to show him and then end up in his bed. Just what are those smudges and what do they mean?

Just as Grey thinks he is getting somewhere (uncovering a secret dorks society, ritual hazing, etc), the Chief of Police tells Grey in the strongest possible terms that the case is closed and the cause of death was suicide. Obviously, he says, it has nothing and everything to do with the money being provided by the School for the town. Grey, incensed by the smalltown corruption and egged on by the mysterious ghostly boy, ignores his own boss and partner and carries on his investigation.

Where will it lead? What will he find? Will anyone care?

Video

Looks good.

Audio

Sounds OK, nothing special though. Not at all.

Features

Not even an apology from the director. For shame…

Conclusion

Well, the premise was good. It started off promisingly too. And contains a good solid performance from Burns. So why is this a complete waste of time? Presumably because despite all the so-called evidence pointing to murder, in the end it was exactly as the Chief said. And he didn`t even see the body. Or know anything about the case or the ghosts or Grey`s affair with Chase or the lame antics going on in the School. Argh!

Honestly, if it wasn`t for Burns I would have switched this film off within about twenty minutes. It was exceedingly dull and goes absolutely nowhere. The plot device about the ghost of the dead boy in the photographs means absolutely nothing and is never queried, resolved or even discussed at any length. It just is. The mysterious boy that haunts Grey is so lame I don`t even want to talk about it anymore, thanks. Except that clearly Grey has never possessed a mirror or had any photographs taken during his life. Doh!

Ehle is quite good in this as well, but she doesn`t have that much to do and just has this perma-grin on her face as if there`s an open audition for Joker in the next Batman movie (stands a good chance of beating Jack Nicholson…). Quite why she suddenly falls for Grey after meeting him for ten minutes is never made clear, but then she is engaged to be married to quite possibly one of the most boring men ever. And Grey has a gun. And a car with flashing lights on it. Woo!

I`ve wasted about an hour and a half watching this and then a good hour writing this. That`s two and a half hours I`ll never get back. I`m just grateful there were no extras to prolong the suffering. Phew!