DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Haven (2004)

By Jeff Swindoll Dec 28, 2006, 15:06 GMT

Haven was a film that was overshadowed by Crash, but oddly now tries to play off of that with a “from the makers of Crash” banner on the top of the DVD case.

Several stories find themselves connected on the Cayman Islands. A shady businessman and his daughter, two lovers, and a gansta-wanna-be all find themselves colliding on Friday the 13th.

Carl (Bill Paxton) is a Miami businessman who has been working with a Cayman Island attorney (Stephen Dillane) to “wash” one million dollars of dirty money. The feds are coming down on him so he packs up his daughter Pippa (Agnes Bruckner) and rushes to the Islands. Shy (Orlando Bloom) is the son of a murdered fisherman who earned his nickname from not talking too much for years after his witnessed his father’s murder. He’s in love with his bosses’ daughter Andrea (Zoe Saldana) and they’ve been trying to keep their romance under wraps from her overprotective parents.

The scarred Shy seeks revenge

Her brother Hammer (Anthony Mackie) finds out about their dalliance and swears revenge on Shy. Pippa meets up with local troublemaking thug Fritz (Victor Rasuk) who just happens to be snoozing in her condo’s bed since her purloined the key from his mother who is the manager. Fritz has his hands in all sorts of bad business and is in debt to Richie Rich (Razaaq Adoti), the local big boss. All of these multiple storylines tie together on one fateful Friday the 13th.

Actually, I should say that it appeared to me that they tied in on that titular evil day. The storytelling is not particularly linear (not that I have a problem with that) and can be a bit confusing about when things are actually happening. The box proclaims from the makers of Crash, but the connection is producer Bob Yari. Both films were made in 2004 and share the same device of several stories being intertwined by chance encounters and coincidence.

However, Haven turned out to be overshadowed by Crash and it has taken 2 years for it to make it to DVD. The film is interesting, but you have to pay attention to catch all the connections. As I said before, the storyline is less than linear and the sense of time in the film sometimes is not laid out in a straightforward fashion. For example, one character goes into jail for four months.

So we gather that the events that involved that character or occurred before their jail time were at least four to five months before Carl and Pippa get to the island. At first you think that the stories are unfolding in parallel fashion and all the jumping around in time will tend to confuse you if you’re not paying attention.

Pippa and Fritz

I thought that Haven was a good film, but not a great one. The scripting tricks tend to go the arty route, but could be confusing. The storyline also has a familiar ring to it, with bits of Romeo and Juliet thrown in.

Haven is presented on a flipper disc. One side has a fullscreen version on it and the other has an anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) version enhanced for 16x9 televisions. The only special feature is a 3 minute “Making of” documentary. The interviewees are not identified but I picked out Orlando Bloom, Bill Paxton, Anthony Mackie, and Victor Rasuk. You also see a bit of director Frank E. Flowers. There’s also the film’s theatrical trailer and a collection of trailers for other Fox DVDs.

Haven was a film that was overshadowed by Crash, but oddly now tries to play off of that with a “from the makers of Crash” banner on the top of the DVD case. I think that renters expecting a film on the par of Crash may go away disappointed, but I also don’t think that Haven was particularly bad.