Dolphins

(2007) Octane/ Dolphins THRILLER

Low budget, straight to rental film about a rebellious bloke who appears to make a living out of car racing on the streets of the United Kingdom, living with a mentally challenged brother and a hopeless unemployed father who is incapable to communicate with his son. He then hooks himself up with a young female teenager even though he already has another relationship whose expecting and demands for him to look for his own flat but sees this other girl instead- cliched love triangle as one can find. Not boring but self-indulgent crap which the events happen conveniently for the star actor. The racing scenes are very controlled since in some some of the racing scenes are slow and was supposed to look like they're going fast but are really going as fast as a mother pushing a baby carriage- it's really that lame. Obviously inspired by the success of "The Fast And The Furious" films but made with a very low budget since none of the expensive cars can be really be scratched or wrecked, and only the cheap ones are damaged. It's obviously quite bad and obvious.

From the outset, I should state that this is a review of the film DOLPHINS as cut by the Director Mark Jay, and not the bastardized DVD version (brought out as Dolphins by Sony in Europe and as Octane by Lionsgate in the US) that seems to have so disappointed the reviewers who have already posted. Word has it that the DVD version was re-cut by the distributors without the director's involvement.

I was lucky enough to catch the Director's Cut of Dolphins at the BOLOGNA FILM FESTIVAL in Italy. I liked it enough to want to have a DVD copy, but when the DVD arrived in the post I realized why the previous reviews had been so negative... it's a very different film! I'll speak about the DIRECTOR'S CUT of Dolphins first then come back to the DVD version of Dolphins/Octane.

The DIRECTOR'S CUT: Filmed in Brighton UK, it is a story about two youngsters from different sides of the tracks who meet by chance and fall in love. Ophelia James is a beautiful, self-harming, punk princess who lives in a large and luxurious house by the sea. Brent Black is a bright, handsome young bloke from a poor, rundown housing estate. The classic story is given an original twist by being set against the background of Brighton's illegal street racing scene, with its amazing customized cars and go-faster attitude.

Most of the cast give wonderfully convincing naturalistic performances. Despite the low budget listed on IMDb, it has remarkably high production values, with the racing scenes being particularly impressive. Most scenes are shot with a striking documentary style realism that draws the viewer in. These are inter-cut with beautiful and poetic images in the romantic scenes, which demonstrate the director's strong and original visual eye. The pairing of these two opposing styles shouldn't work, but they are so skilfully woven together that it does. The action is backed by a series of well-chosen and often classic tracks, although the scored music is a little underwhelming in places. My vote for the DIRECTOR'S CUT of Dolphins is 7.5/10, but considering it's a first feature I'm impatient to see what Mark Jay will do next.

The DVD VERSION of Dolphins/Octane is very different. The film has been re-cut in an apparent attempt to convert it from an across the tracks romance into a boy racers' bonanza. It's obviously trying to be a UK version of "The Fast and the Furious", but it doesn't work. A lot of what's good in Dolphins has been brutally and ineptly cut out and replaced, it appears, by alternative takes of the racing scenes. The result is flat, unbalanced and uninspiring. It's difficult to understand why someone would take a perfectly good film and ruin it!! My vote for the DVD VERSION of Dolphins/Octane is 6/10.

I am sure that if I had watched the director's cut, I would have hated the commercial version of Dolphins. But I guess it is like wine; if you only know a modest local wine, without having tasted a 1989 Bordeaux, you will certainly appreciate the local wine. As I have unfortunately not been able to watch the original version of the movie, I actually loved the commercial version. A few guys and myself went to the birthday of a friend who is passionated by cars, and he wanted to watch with us a new DVD that he had got recently. We were not very motivated because cars are are not our main preoccupation. Then he went on the internet and we watched together the trailer of Dolphins- http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3969712665/ , and it looked like a film for 14- years old car lovers... but our friend was so motivated that we finally comfortably sat in front of the screen with a few beers (we did not find any Bordeaux). And it was absolutely not the kind of film we were expecting... very convincing actors, and also an emotional dimension. The director has been able to describe a very very dark world, full of violence, drugs... and in this hell, a fragile love story between 2 fragile people. The death of one important person of the film at the end is very surprising and shocking. But it is a great idea from the scriptwriter. If you have the choice, watch the director's cut instead of the commercial one, it is certainly better. But if you can't get the original version, I still recommend the commercial movie, it is a very very enjoyable film!