“Deep in the Heart” on a Fun City Edition Blu-ray! Here for Purchase.
Boston born Catholic Kathleen was raised in a good home by Irish immigrant parents. Having moved from the liberal Northeast America to Dallas, Texas, Kathleen finds employment as an American history teacher at a local high school. She meets born-and-raised Texan, attorney, and gun enthusiast Larry Keeler at a colleague’s outdoor barbeque and the two casually see each other off and on with Kathleen not interested in something more serious with the charming and handsome, budding attorney, but Larry believes Kathleen’s too uptight to see how madly desirable she makes him and rapes her at gunpoint when he can longer steady his urges, proclaiming her sexual hangups and rigidness as faults against her immense drawing of sensuality during post-coital. Reporting her attack to law enforcement and her Catholic priest for prosecution and spiritual relief, both agencies fail to side with Kathleen’s trauma based on the facts of the case and God’s ever-tolerant forgiveness toward everyone. The anger seething inside impels her to chop off her long, blond hair, dress more matronly, and join a handgun gun club after Larry continues to casually insert himself into her life like nothing ever happened and down the barrel’s site, Kathleen plots her vengeance.
If there was an ever a more culturally relevant and timely film today produced and released decades ago, encapsulating the worst parts of American history, “Deep in the Heart,” aka “Handgun,” is that very film. Through the perspective of the expatriate filmmaker Tony Garrett, having been born and raised in a country without an intense gun culture, “The Prostitute” English writer-and-director entrenches his outsider take on America’s unique, and unhealthy, gun fascination around an equally powerful systematic rape culture that ignores the severity of the transgression and assigns blame to the victim and, in turn, has the attacker come out unscathed due to being an upright citizen and a pillar of the community amongst his, also male, peers. Filmed entirely location in Dallas in 1981 but not released in 1983, Tony Garrett co-produces the film with American producer David Streit (“The Prowler”) under United Kingdom production companies EMI and Kestrel Films where American distributors were eager to bank off the sexy rape-and-revenge thrillers of “Ms. 45” or “The Last House on the Left” but received a more thought provoking and provocative thriller that analyzed more of a problematic inward of U.S. culture and global societal toxicity.
A daunting and difficult role for any actress to play, Karen Young had captured the epitome of a formulaic victimized women in an injustice system for her first major feature-length role. Young, who went on to have roles in “Jaws: The Revenge,” “Daylight,” and “The Orphan Killer,” embodies the American dream of the young, educated woman, Kathleen, from humble beginnings living away from home and having a career as a high school teacher in Dallas, Texas. Kathleen’s American dream is crushed by the methodical mentality of Larry Keeler, representing America’s grasping of the past of taking what you want, even if that means by way of force. Keeler is played by born-and-raised Texan Clayton Day (“Osa”) with a fast-talking, full of himself reproach to a debut performance that involve rape at gunpoint and being fully nude with your equally green costar. Garrett’s able to convert the two inexperienced actors into raw talent, extracting their singular qualities into a combined effort of a sordid cultural subtext and cat-and-mouse rape-and-revenge suspenser. Kathleen’s transitional arc from the shy and innocent Catholic outsider to the hate-filled, pro-gun, self-serving vigilante proved to be a dazzling gem of range and moxie pulled from the rough depths of untapped talent and getting to that point is a journey expressed vividly and thoroughly to build up both characters’ constitutions without a ton of exposition or visual insight. Keelers intentions never slip but we understand through his conversations with Kathleen he’s a gun advocate and collector, he’s a good-time, good ol’ boy party animal at a colleague’s bachelor party at the Foxy Boxy – a Women’s see-through T-shirt boxing competition, and he has overt charm pasted thick with insincerity with out on dates with the high school teacher from Boston. “Deep in the Heart” is centrically designed around these two principals with an already established built around gun-toting, fast-and-loose, and blinders on male dominated environment inhabited by smaller, yet key roles from the denizens of Dallas.
“Deep in the Heart” is not the sexy, rapey, glorified femme fatale film every will think it is. “Deep in the Heart” is what Tony Garrett understand and believe in from the interpretation of dark side, misguided American values and how those cultural thorns that prick into the side of the free world change the course of all that is good and pure in the foundational basis America is built upon. Engrossingly tied to modern day hot topics, Garret had incredible foresight or, maybe, was just brazen enough to go against the grain being an foreign expat shocked by not only the legal system but by the backwards ideas and beliefs of everyday citizens in different regions of the country. In not only the rape but the whole pre- and post-rape setup is surrounding Kathleen’s inquietude is noticeable and uncomfortable to watch. Men and women alike should feel icky of the transpiring contexts of spirituality failure, justice system failure, and an overall human being failure that lets Kathleen suffer in silence without the hoopla of scandal and punishment. Instead, Kathleen’s bottled anger works inward toward a radical, retribution fix, resurrecting her from downtrodden ashes like a phoenix carrying a six-shooting revolver poised to a point of no return in DIY selfcare.
Fun City Editions understands the power from “Deep in the Heart” by showcasing a new, restored transfer for their Blu-ray release. Restored in a 4K scan from the original 35mm camera negative, making its first Blu-ray appearance globally, “Deep in the Heart” is stored on an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 and presented in an anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Not a whisper of image infraction, “Deep in the Heart” has a gorgeously graded picture that sees hardly any signs of aging or wear and the Fun City Edition’s restoration keeps the elements in alignment with the feature’s period of a late 70’s to early 80’s harsh filmed layer. Color hues are vibrant and bold without appearing washed, presenting near perfect textures on clothing, skin, and environment and darker scenes keep contours and some details present without being completely dense or lost in any compression banding and splotches. A lossless English DTS-HD mono track is more than ample audio for a very tight knit thriller mostly for indoor acoustics. Exteriors capture the and highlight the appropriate milieu ambience, managed well within the single layer monaural to keep dialogue front and center. Dialogue does not go without some crackling and hissing but not enough to be a nuisance, just noticeable. Mike Post’s soundtrack is eclectic between night club boogies and harrowing hangers. English subtitles are optionally available. Special features included are a newly recorded audio commentary by Erica Shuliz, co-host of the Texas-based Unsung Horrors podcast, and Irish filmmaker Chris O’Neill providing in-depth insight and analyst of Tony Garrett’s underappreciated film, a brief archive interview with directory Tony Garrett on his perspective route as an outsider looking at the celebration and de-celebration of guns in America, an image gallery, and the theatrical trailer. Tactile elements and striking rigid slipcase art from graphic artist Tom Ralston makes this Fun City Edition highly desirable as the U.S. title “Deep in the Heart” graces one side and the U.K. title “Handgun” can be found on the back (or front depending on how you look at it). Sheathed inside is a clear Blu-ray Amaray casing with reversible cover art of three different country posters from the U.S. (primary) and U.K. and Japan (on the inside). Disc is pressed with more Ralston imagery while the opposite side insert is of a 10-page color booklet with a new essay from film critic and author, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. Rated R with a region A playback, “Deep in the Heart” has a runtime of 99 minutes.
Last Rites: “Deep in the Heart” is an important film. For some, the rape-revenge thriller can be either be eye-opener and another reminder added to the long list that America is gun crazy and legally not perfect. For others, those expecting the sleazy, sexy rape film followed by the subsequent gratuitous violence will quickly go limp by Tony Garrett’s call-it-as-he-sees-it narrative that, for an intensive purposes, coincides with the rest of the world’s perception.
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