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DVD review: "Donnie Darko: Director's Cut"

Release date: Feb. 15, 2005
Notes: The DVD's extras include a commentary track, a production diary and a featurette on the film's cult status.

Many critics and fans of this funny, inventive, smart and shocking headbanger of a movie prefer the shorter version (including me). Still, with 21 minutes added, director Richard Kelly's ultimate take on his 2001 cult hit is still marvelous in many ways. The longer film is still weird and mind-blowing. It's still the bent tale of an eerily smart high school student (Jake Gyllenhaal) in 1988, a confused Holden Caufield type struggling to figure out why everyone doesn't think the way he does. He's also beset with David Lynchian dreams and visions of a tall, monsterific rabbit. The film explores religion, time travel and teen alienation. It's a film that explores the farthest reaches of the human noggin.
-- Bob Longino

TO SUM UP
Highschooler Donnie is plagued by visions of a giant evil rabbit who orders him to commit acts of violence and predicts the impending end of the world.

FILM FACTS ...

Newmarket Film Group

'Donnie Darko: Director's Cut'

Director: Richard Kelly
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal and Jena Malone
Run time: 133 minutes
Release date: Aug. 27, 2004
Rating: R for profanity, some drug use and violence

On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
-- Trailers require Quicktime