This movie was roundly bashed when released around the Thanksgiving period of 1998,and while I cannot say that this film was a roundly abominable as was popular to say after its release,it's still not a particularly good effort and a VERY pale shade of the original.
If this show works at all,it is because director Gus van Zandt doesn't mess with it AT ALL. Nearly shot-for-shot,with dialog not touched much at all,the story is kept in tact and,as such,that's why this has ANYTHING going for it. You may know the story of Marion Crane,a late-twenty-something investment firm secretary whose affair with married Sam Loomis drives her to abscond with $400,000 of investor's money,ends up stopping at an out-of-the-way rural California motel due to fatigue and heavy rain,and then goes "missing". She's tracked by her sister Lila and boyfriend Sam,as well as business-hired PI Milton Arbogast. The trail takes them to the motel of shy,seemingly pleasant motel keeper Norman Bates,whose bizarre behavior and loyalty to his mother covers much more sinister and violent behavior. This story is so ingrained in the public consciousness,and the compelling and tragic behavior of the principals involved is something that stands for itself.
What fails this movie,to me,can be broken down in three ways:first off,I know it's been said before but casting is pretty shaky,not so much the minor characters(Philip Baker Hall as a local sheriff,William H. Macy as Arbogast or the actors playing the car salesman or dogged state trooper trailing Marion)but the major characters either seem misplaced(Anne Heche is far more grating as and seems unsure of how to play Marion;Vince Vaughn's Norman doesn't seem sure whether he wants to be the charming,nervous "Oh that CAN'T be him!" Norman or as a straight-up,chilling and creepy sociopath;Julianne Moore's Lila seems to be affecting a little TOO much aggressiveness;and Viggo Mortensen's playing Sam as some sort of sexually ambiguous southern-fried player just feels wrong somehow). Secondly,the movie choosing to go shot-for-shot,with few if any script alteration,chooses to make it clear that this film is set in present day 1998,yet the making of that movie,and indeed the character qualities and conflicts are SERIOUSLY couched in 1960,thus creating an odd conflict of trying to make a movie that truly feels forty years old in terms of male/female relations,social mores and even in some of the devices or machines(I could swear that Marion's cars look more like those wide steering wheels and flat interiors of late fifties automobiles!)and yet pretends to be casually in the "now";thirdly,given the amount of reverence the original commands(and I would be among those who would share it),a shot-for-shot remake with different actors playing the characters is almost inherently set to be a comparative study and as such will probably reflect badly upon the actors in the new movie. In short,it's a situation for the actors that is almost inevitably set to fail.
This movie might,MIGHT have worked if it were done for a smaller medium--cable TV would be my posit--since it would suggest tribute yet wouldn't be so hubris in its thinking it could ever have a relationship to the original that would merit it being played on the big screen like its original copy. However,the desire to ape the original,without any creative attempt(aside from small touches from Van Zandt,which then come off as merely tacky or pretentious)by the new filmmakers seems like little more than an overstuffed homage to Hitchcock. It's not bad to look at or watch,but its far too indebted to its original and off of an effort to be anything more than a curiosity and/or a desire to just re-watch the original.
If this show works at all,it is because director Gus van Zandt doesn't mess with it AT ALL. Nearly shot-for-shot,with dialog not touched much at all,the story is kept in tact and,as such,that's why this has ANYTHING going for it. You may know the story of Marion Crane,a late-twenty-something investment firm secretary whose affair with married Sam Loomis drives her to abscond with $400,000 of investor's money,ends up stopping at an out-of-the-way rural California motel due to fatigue and heavy rain,and then goes "missing". She's tracked by her sister Lila and boyfriend Sam,as well as business-hired PI Milton Arbogast. The trail takes them to the motel of shy,seemingly pleasant motel keeper Norman Bates,whose bizarre behavior and loyalty to his mother covers much more sinister and violent behavior. This story is so ingrained in the public consciousness,and the compelling and tragic behavior of the principals involved is something that stands for itself.
What fails this movie,to me,can be broken down in three ways:first off,I know it's been said before but casting is pretty shaky,not so much the minor characters(Philip Baker Hall as a local sheriff,William H. Macy as Arbogast or the actors playing the car salesman or dogged state trooper trailing Marion)but the major characters either seem misplaced(Anne Heche is far more grating as and seems unsure of how to play Marion;Vince Vaughn's Norman doesn't seem sure whether he wants to be the charming,nervous "Oh that CAN'T be him!" Norman or as a straight-up,chilling and creepy sociopath;Julianne Moore's Lila seems to be affecting a little TOO much aggressiveness;and Viggo Mortensen's playing Sam as some sort of sexually ambiguous southern-fried player just feels wrong somehow). Secondly,the movie choosing to go shot-for-shot,with few if any script alteration,chooses to make it clear that this film is set in present day 1998,yet the making of that movie,and indeed the character qualities and conflicts are SERIOUSLY couched in 1960,thus creating an odd conflict of trying to make a movie that truly feels forty years old in terms of male/female relations,social mores and even in some of the devices or machines(I could swear that Marion's cars look more like those wide steering wheels and flat interiors of late fifties automobiles!)and yet pretends to be casually in the "now";thirdly,given the amount of reverence the original commands(and I would be among those who would share it),a shot-for-shot remake with different actors playing the characters is almost inherently set to be a comparative study and as such will probably reflect badly upon the actors in the new movie. In short,it's a situation for the actors that is almost inevitably set to fail.
This movie might,MIGHT have worked if it were done for a smaller medium--cable TV would be my posit--since it would suggest tribute yet wouldn't be so hubris in its thinking it could ever have a relationship to the original that would merit it being played on the big screen like its original copy. However,the desire to ape the original,without any creative attempt(aside from small touches from Van Zandt,which then come off as merely tacky or pretentious)by the new filmmakers seems like little more than an overstuffed homage to Hitchcock. It's not bad to look at or watch,but its far too indebted to its original and off of an effort to be anything more than a curiosity and/or a desire to just re-watch the original.