Oz - The Complete Fourth Season dvd movie.|
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List Price: $39.98 Our Price: $19.99 You Save: $19.99 Features • AC-3 • Box set • Closed-captioned • Color • Dolby • Dubbed • DVD-Video • Subtitled • NTSC In Theaters : 12 July, 1997 DVD Release : 01 February, 2005 |
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Oz - The Complete Fourth Season description The heightened reality of Oz remains consistently engrossing in the fourth season of HBO's volatile prison drama. All 16 episodes were written or cowritten by series creator Tom Fontana, and are bookended by the wisely sardonic observations of paraplegic prisoner Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), whose terse, philosophical ruminations about life in "Oz" give the series its literate edge. The 2000-2001 season finds Oz in the wake of racial warfare; tensions remain high among the factions that make the "Em City" cell block a hotbed of seething animosity among the skinhead Aryans led by Shillinger (J.K. Simmons); Muslim splinter groups led by Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker), the fearsome Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and Supreme Allah (Lord Jamar); and the resident Mafia, Latinos, and lowlifes who make up Em City's embroiled population of newcomers, hard-timers, and death-row inmates. Unit Administrator McManus (Terry Kinney) sets up a centrally located penalty cage for anyone who causes outbreaks of violence (which are shockingly frequent and frequently lethal), but loses his job in a mid-season plot development that spins Oz into a maelstrom of internal politics and brutal retaliation. Through it all, Fontana and his collaborators (including guest director Steve Buscemi) maintain impressive focus on dozens of finely drawn characters. Laced with homosexual tension, jealousies, religious fervor, and threats of betrayal, the season's most compelling conflicts involve impulsive killer Ryan O'Reily (played with cagey menace by Dean Winters) and his brain-damaged half-brother Cyril (Scott William Winters); and the manipulative Keller (Christopher Meloni) and his prison lover Toby Beecher (Lee Tergesen), a lawyer and convicted murderer whose survival seems perpetually uncertain. Tenuous order is barely maintained by warden Glynn (Ernie Hudson) and Catholic counselor "Sister Pete" (Rita Moreno), but the bulk of Oz's fourth season is devoted to chaos, as shifting loyalties keep all prisoners (and all viewers) in a state of anxious anticipation. The criminal histories of many inmates are shown in flashback, and one death-row scenario (involving guest star Kathryn Erbe) reaches its inevitable conclusion. By the time episode 16 ends with a blazing inferno, you'll be wondering about the fate of Rev. Cloutier (Luke Perry) and anxious for the tumultuous events of season 5. (Commentary accompanies two episodes: Fontana and Moreno offer informative anecdotes on "You Bet Your Life," but the Fontana/Winters/Tergesen commentary on "Famous Last Words" is raucously undisciplined and for hardcore Oz fans only.)--Jeff Shannon |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Ever-increasing level of drama. |
| This is a positive review, but first I feel obligated to warn potential viewers of just how bloody this season is. If you thought the previous three seasons were disturbing and violent, you won't believe what you see here. A man getting his neck snapped while giving a blow job, a child getting mutilated (mostly off screen, thankfully) and an inmate being buried alive are some of the more shocking twists. These scenes are not too common, nor are they the main point of the show, but they are there.
Season Four opens with a story of racial tension. A white boy shoots down several blacks inmates and so the black population, led by the dangerous Adebisi, decides to take things into their own hands. Those few who remain impartial in the face of Adebisi's machinations wind up in more danger than ever before. Muslim leader Kareem Said and former section leader of Em City Tim McManus have a plan to stop him...if they live long enough. At the same time, there are the stories of the prisoners' daily lives. Most interesting to me were the violent romance between inmates Beecher and Keller and the story of the four people on death row. In the first story, the recently reconciled Beecher and Keller get into a fight that separates them again. Just how far the two are willing to go to hurt each other might surprise you. In the second story, four death row inmates find themselves with no company but each other. The friendships that result make for the most touching and best written scenes in the show. Of course, all the other characters we've come to know and love (or despise) get their time in the spotlight. Alvarez escaping, Arian leader Schillinger reconnecting with his son, Said and Beecher developing a surprising friendship and an inmate's wedding are just a few of the tales. Unfortunately, not all the story lines are perfect. Oz has always asked us to suspend our disbelief a little, but some of the ideas this season border on absurd. We're asked to swallow a pill that ages people, a romance between a woman and the man that murdered her husband and several murders that go unnoticed by authorities. Fortunately, most of the season and all of the acting is good enough that a few stray plot bunnies are forgivable. Oz Season Four is an emotionally intense, often shocking roller coaster that you won't want to stop watching. Make sure to clear a lot of time for yourself before you turn it on. |
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