Stars:
Timothy Hutton, Lara Fynn Boyle, Faye Dunaway, Dwight Schultz, Oliver Platt,
Steven Weber, and Maura Tierney
Writer:
Kevin Falls
Based
On A Story By: Kevin Falls and Tom Engelman
Director:
Tom Holland
Feature
length: 96 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English Dolby Surround 2.0 and French Stereo
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions
Packaging:
Amaray Keep Case
Chapter
Stops: 13
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Stereo Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 1993/DVD Release: 2002
Theatrical
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Home
Video Distributor: Paramount Home Entertainment
MPAA
Rating: R
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
The
Temp from hell! I suppose that can go hand in hand with the Boss from hell, but
my experience in the working world has yielded few extremes though I can say I
have had a supervisor who put me through hell on a daily basis and then I had a
boss from heaven who was so nice that everyone who worked for her truly admired
her because she knew how to yield authority and was never abusive even under the
highest pressure situations. The same goes true for those who one supervises
though thankfully I never had a temporary employee from hell.
Timothy
Hutton’s character gets the temp from hell when his regular assistant takes
personal time so he can be with his wife and their first child. Compared to his
assistant, Kris (Lara Flynn Boyle) is simply a dynamo of efficiency. Within a
day she organizes his hardcopy office files and computer files and provides him
with some great ideas on a new old-fashioned cookie line his company is
developing that could make or break his career, but of course there is a catch.
She is a sociopath and conniver and before the viewer knows it, accidents within
the company and intrusions upon his personal life begin to threaten the very
fabric of his world.
“The
Temp” was released during a time when films along the lines of “The Hand
That Rocks The Cradle” were popular among theatergoers. Tom Holland, who is
probably more associated for his dramatizations of Stephen King stories on the
big and small screen with films like “Thinner” and “The Langoliers,”
directed “The Temp.” Timothy Hutton has appeared in George A. Romero’s big
screen adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Dark Half” and Steven Webber
starred in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Shining,”
which was directed by Mick Garris. Lara Flynn Boyle at the time was probably
most recognizable for her role on the cult David Lynch TV series “Twin
Peaks.”
The
film is actually pretty silly, but entertaining as long as you just accept what
happens and not try to place any logic into how implausible much of it is. The
biggest problem with the film is it has a flat ending that just leaves the
viewer cut off just short of any satisfactory resolution. To say more would be
to spoil the ending.
A
bare bones DVD release, Paramount Home Entertainment presents “The Temp” on
DVD-Video with an anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) aspect ratio. The picture
quality is a disappointment with visible grain throughout the entire film. I am
attributing this to the source materials used and not the DVD mastering. It is a
shame a cleaner print was not available. A new English Dolby Digital 5.1
Surround Soundtrack is provided and is a marked improvement over the original
English Dolby Surround Soundtrack, which is included as well. There is also a
French Language Stereo Surround Soundtrack and English Captions and Closed
Captions encoded on to the single layered DVD.
The menus are standard interactive still frames that are easy to
navigate.
“The
Temp” will debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, April 16, 2002 from Paramount Home
Entertainment.
©
Copyright 2002 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.