Reviewed by EWAN McDONALD
Herald rating * * *
Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) used to be a best-selling novelist with all the trappings: the beautiful Stepford wife, the mansion in the New England suburbs. Until he found said wife, Amy (Maria Bello), in bed with another man in a low-rent motel. Divorced,
he now lives as a down-at-heel recluse in a lakeside shack fighting off writer's block and trying to get past the first paragraph of his next book.
One morning there's a knock at the door. An extremely angry man wants to talk to Mort. His name is John Shooter (John Turturro, who appropriately featured in Anger Management) and he is extremely angry because he believes that Mort has stolen his story. Shooter wrote a tale called The Secret Window and is darned certain that Mort has plagiarised it for his new short story — The Secret Window.
Now this is a pretty good set-up, and you'd expect nothing less from a Stephen King story. Rainey is all but trapped in his cabin; Shooter is hanging around and threatening violence not only to Mort but also those who could help him out, including his ex-wife, who lives nearby. And not only violence: it seems that Shooter knows of something that could destroy Mort's increasingly tenuous hold on reality.
DVD viewers will find a reasonable selection of extra features, including behind-the-scenes moments, four deleted scenes, interviews with the appropriate personages and running commentary from writer-director David Koepp. The pictures, on widescreen anamorphic transfer, 2.40:1 aspect ratio, are excellent, as is the audio featuring Philip Glass' soundtrack.
DVD, video rental August 11
