Spreading Ground (2000)

Disturbing yet enthralling

A Masterpiece!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This Canadian production gives us Dennis Hopper and Frederick Forest as two detectives who are left only 48 hours to find the serial murderer. If they don't get the job done, the mayor's major investment in some property will be ruined and she'll be out of office. The mayor, however, is involved with some highly juiced Irish crooks, including Tom McCamus, and she puts the crooks on the tail of the serial murderer too because the killings are upsetting her apple cart. Tom McCamus has a great face for the movies. (He was an incestuous Dad in "The Sweet Hereafter".) And you can't beat him name, "Son of Camus." Unfortunately his acting here is about at the level of everyone else's -- strictly utilitarian. Dennis Hopper tries to play it straight, really he does. But underneath the professional cop and the flawed father we still sense the demon. I've always liked Frederick Forest. I don't think he's ever made it possible for a viewer to forget he's acting, but he looks great with his puffy eyes and louche ponytail. He looked even better as Dashiel Hammett. Not to put any of these performers down. Their acting doesn't stand out as poor because no one's stands out as particularly good. Leslie Hope seems to bring a kind of blur to whatever part of the screen she occupies. (Leslie Hope? Isn't that Bob Hope's real name? Maybe not.) The script is generic and not especially bad. The direction is efficient. The photography is really quite good. The colors are cool but appropriately so. And the lighting is as it should be -- solid black shadows where they are called for, and naturalistic lighting elsewhere. They didn't catch The X-File syndrome and throw us a lot of flashlight beams poking about in perpetual gloom. There's what I guess could be called an average chase through some newly constructed sewer at the climax.In first explaining how the sewer works to the investigators, the manager goes through his practiced tour -- the street runoff comes in here and is congealed with the solid waste, then it's processed in that unit over there, then the solid waste is emulsified and extracted by the Nakatomi Solid Waste Extractor, the individual E. coli are vasectomized, the cholera vibrios receive twelve-step counseling, the chloroform and bacteriocidal material are added over there, diluted with Toxico Smegmaphage, fractionally distilled, tested on experimental groups drawn from third-world prisons, and then its flushed out into the reservoir.

the lowest score possible is one star? that's a shame. really, i'm going to lobby IMDb for a "zero stars" option. to give this film even a single star is giving WAY too much. am i the only one who noticed the microphones dangling over hopper's head at the station? and the acting, or should i say the lack thereof? apparently talent wasn't a factor when the casting director came to town. my little sister's elementary school talent show provides greater range and depth of emotion. and those fake irish accents were like nails on a chalk board. the only thing that could have made this movie worse would have been...oh, wait, no,no, it's already as bad as it can get.

The movie to me represented a battle for supremacy, not only between good and evil but the morality play it invoked on the societies perspective. The Detective represented justice and truth. The Gangsters represented society. And the Mayor & Chief of Police represented the conflict of interest between the society and the law. And the Criminal represented the evil and the main conflict. I personally believe this movie is an interesting Psychological and Sociological study of not only society, but of our own psyche. I think the movie did however miss out on a few things, minor though but slightly visible. But overall the movie with an overall unknown cast displayed an interesting showcase of entertainment, and after all isn't what it's all about!

Derek VanLint has done an outstanding job with this film. As I watched it, I imagined that either he had immense control over his director of photography or that he WAS one and the same, aside from being the overall film director. I was right. His eye for making a scene as intense as possible, and for finding what not to SAY, but what to SHOW, is amazing! Anyone who didn't enjoy this needs to re-evaluate just how many explosions or car chases they still need to see in their lifetime. This film does not rely on the overused junk that "mass appeal" films can't seem to do without. Also, Dennis Hopper is great in a role completely against typecasting! Frederic Forrest seems strained and pained as the overworked and overtired sidekick detective.