Another film from the alphabetical trawl through Disney Plus, now made much more arduous by the arrival of the "Star" channel to the app. "A Cool, Dry Place" is a soapy drama from 1999, that had me come away with two major thoughts. 1) Wow, I really take digital high definition film for granted now and 2) when, if ever, will this movie end.
Unable to maintain his job as a city solicitor now that he's a single father, Russell (Vince Vaughn) takes a low-pressure job at a rural practice where he's able to raise his son, Calvin (Bobby Moat) and even coach the high school basketball team. He begins to see Beth Ward (Joey Lauren Adams) romantically and is starting to get a handle on things when his wife, Kate (Monica Potter) re-enters their lives hoping to re-establish relationships with Calvin and with Russell.
The first thing that has to be said is that the version that is currently up on Disney Plus looks terrible. It's grainy film stock, that hasn't been remastered and it really makes the film feel like a cheap TV movie. Which it absolutely would be, were it not for the star names in it. You don't appreciate how good things can look in a digital age, until you have to look back on something like this, which is only twenty years old.
Now I can accept visual issues if the story is good, but alas that isn't the case either. "A Cool, Dry Place" (which is a terrible title, even with the concept that it comes from within the film) is a dull soapy film, full of odd bits of plot that don't service the story much but get the run time up. There are B and C stories, one involving Devon Sawa as Beth's tearaway brother and another, even more bizarre one, about a case that Russell has, that at least gives some screen time to the ever-reliable Todd Louiso. Neither of these plots actually concludes, goes anywhere or feeds back into the main story at all.
It doesn't help that the poster suggests that it's a sexy thriller, which despite a couple of super mild sex scenes, it really isn't. Nor that Vaughn is rather a bit miscast as the romantic lead given his propensity for playing edgier weirdos. God bless all the reviewers that found something positive about this, but I thought it was tedious.
Unable to maintain his job as a city solicitor now that he's a single father, Russell (Vince Vaughn) takes a low-pressure job at a rural practice where he's able to raise his son, Calvin (Bobby Moat) and even coach the high school basketball team. He begins to see Beth Ward (Joey Lauren Adams) romantically and is starting to get a handle on things when his wife, Kate (Monica Potter) re-enters their lives hoping to re-establish relationships with Calvin and with Russell.
The first thing that has to be said is that the version that is currently up on Disney Plus looks terrible. It's grainy film stock, that hasn't been remastered and it really makes the film feel like a cheap TV movie. Which it absolutely would be, were it not for the star names in it. You don't appreciate how good things can look in a digital age, until you have to look back on something like this, which is only twenty years old.
Now I can accept visual issues if the story is good, but alas that isn't the case either. "A Cool, Dry Place" (which is a terrible title, even with the concept that it comes from within the film) is a dull soapy film, full of odd bits of plot that don't service the story much but get the run time up. There are B and C stories, one involving Devon Sawa as Beth's tearaway brother and another, even more bizarre one, about a case that Russell has, that at least gives some screen time to the ever-reliable Todd Louiso. Neither of these plots actually concludes, goes anywhere or feeds back into the main story at all.
It doesn't help that the poster suggests that it's a sexy thriller, which despite a couple of super mild sex scenes, it really isn't. Nor that Vaughn is rather a bit miscast as the romantic lead given his propensity for playing edgier weirdos. God bless all the reviewers that found something positive about this, but I thought it was tedious.