Solitary Man - DVD

Movie: If you thought Michael Douglas' time was up, 2010 truly proved you wrong. Not only does Douglas get to show that he can still be convincing as the sleazy Gordon Gekko in the second installment of "Wall Street", 23 years after his Oscar win. Douglas also delivers a performance in the independent drama "Solitary Man" that elevates the film far above average, despite the rather average script.

Douglas here plays Ben Kalmen, a formerly extremely successful car dealer who faces quite a few problems. His wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon) has left him, his chain of car dealerships is bankrupt, his daughter (Jenna Fischer) is increasingly distancing herself from him, and his relationship with his much younger girlfriend Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker) isn't looking particularly good either. Because it's not love that binds Ben to Jordan, but the fact that her father, an influential entrepreneur, could help him with his professional comeback. Too bad Ben also destroys that chance for a fresh start when he gets into bed with Jordan's daughter, Allyson (Imogen Poots). And so it soon looks like the aging womanizer has finally tripped himself up...

Michael Douglas delivers a great performance as the notorious womanizer. Watching him destroy all the opportunities that keep coming his way with one bad decision after another is a real pleasure, despite the actual tragedy of the story. Douglas is supported by a great ensemble of actors, including reuniting him with fellow actor Danny DeVito, with whom Douglas made some of the biggest hits of his career in the '80s. Susan Sarandon, Jesse Eisenberg ("Zombieland", "The Social Network"), Mary-Louise Parker ("Weeds"), and Jenna Fischer ("The Office") are also perfectly cast in their small, but fine roles.

In the face of such compelling acting performances, it's almost barely noticeable that the film itself tells a fairly simple-minded story that, carried by lesser actors, could have easily drifted into irrelevance. After all, the story focuses too much on the character of Ben and his hit with women, pushing the supporting characters, as well as the actual plot, a bit too much into the background.

However, even if it becomes obvious again and again, especially in the last third, that the actors are stronger here than the script, "Solitary Man" is, all in all, a very entertaining piece of American independent cinema, which proves once again that good films are no longer only found in the cinema, but more and more often also as DVD premieres. Who wants to see once again a really great and wonderfully self-deprecating Michael Douglas, which can therefore confidently reach for this disc!

Picture + Sound: Audiovisually, the DVD is on a good level. While the sound remains largely unspectacular and the dialogue especially in the German language version sounds a bit arg front-heavy, the picture can please with a very harmonious color scheme and a satisfactory overall sharpness. Not stunning, but good!

Extras: The DVD has, apart from a few trailers, only a barely 16-minute making of to offer as a bonus, which has not much more to offer than film snippets and a few promotional-heavy interviews. Weak!

Conclusion: "Solitary Man" is a DVD premiere worth seeing, which can score especially with its great actors. The DVD is technically well implemented, but a short promotional interview is plenty poor as bonus material. Nevertheless: for lovers of American independent cinema this film is well worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp