'White Noise' provides little other than static

When the last TV station – there were four in Springfield at the time – signed off for the night, we would sit and stare at the static. Doing this long enough brings about the same results as staring at the weird dot paintings. For some reason we dubbed the practice “watching the hockey games.”

My wife has a similar story. As a teen, whenever she was watching TV late at night and heard “The Star Spangled Banner” – the prelude to a station’s sign off – she would panic and race to turn the TV off. She didn’t want to go to the static.

There’s just something weird about static, I guess; it’s so random, wild and unsettling.

With that history in mind, I was intrigued by the previews for “White Noise.”

The set up is great ... a movie about “the hockey games.”

The film discusses a phenomenon referred to as “EVP,” “electronic voice phenomenon.”

This phenomenon consists of channeling people on the other side – more commonly referred to as the dead – through radios and TVs that are tuned between stations and are picking up static or “white noise.”

Immersed in the noise are occasional messages from the world beyond. This is unlike real radio, be it talk or rock, where nothing is immersed in the goop being heard.

Immersed in this film are nuggets of what could have been a chilling thriller, but it quickly bogs down into a mishmash of pseudo-science and melodrama.

A few individual scenes work well – and Michael Keaton is a very engaging actor – but on the whole, the film fizzles louder than the title implies.

In “White Noise,” Keaton plays Jonathan Rivers – an architect who has just lost his wife, Anna. In a “why does Hollywood feel the need to do this?” moment, the viewer will note Anna is far too young for Jonathan. There are a number of great-looking, talented actresses above the age of 30.

Jonathan is obsessed with Anna and haunted by her death. He somehow (the intricacies of the film are mindless and excruciating) hooks up with Raymond Price (Ian McNeice), a man who claims he’s not a psychic, not a medium.

He doesn’t try to contact the dead. They contact him.

Ray has a vast array of electronic equipment and quite the clientele.

Jonathan becomes obsessed with EVP after meeting Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), one of Ray’s clients who has had statically induced contact with her deceased husband.

Jonathan soon begins receiving messages from the great beyond. Some of them are from people who are still alive but are soon to join the dearly departed. Some are from Anna. Others are from beings that, if there was capital punishment in the afterlife, would qualify.

Our hero understands his wife is merely trying to help him from beyond the grave.

“From Beyond the Grave” is a great title for a pulp comic. It might also be a good premise for a film. In this case, the point was missed.

“White Noise” gets more preposterous – and I’m not one unwilling to suspend belief in the face of film – as it progresses.

Some of the plot devices are confusing, inane and annoying, and by the final act, the astute viewer will have but one question:

“What the ...?”

It’s hard not to like Michael Keaton – he’s got the same sort of charisma that actors such as Tom Hanks possess. Other actors would kill for this trait. Keaton usually plays a good guy but, as in “Pacific Heights,” can play a bad guy as well. Here he’s just a regular guy, and a fairly bland one at that. I’m surprised he accepted this role.

There are some scary moments in “White Noise” and the concept is intriguing. Much like the cults that surround “Plan 9 From Outer Space,” I can foresee movie buffs renting the DVD of “White Noise” and planning parties around it.

Keep in mind, though; “White Noise” is no “Battlefield Earth,” the L. Ron Hubbard story brought to the screen by Scientology devotee John Travolta. That movie makes “Plan 9” look like “Citizen Kane” and is highly recommended for your next hoot fest.

The audio is well-executed, and besides the static from radio and TV there are well-placed “white noise” environments featuring running water, cars on wet pavement, etc.

But good sound does not a movie make...

In the end “White Noise” proves to be merely Hollywood static.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

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