Blu ray review: Nobody's Fool (1994)

Kino Lorber has released this layered drama on blu ray and 4K.

Paul Newman had been a 40 year veteran of movies when he starred as Sully, a hard-headed construction worker dealing with body aches and repressed heartaches due to his stubborn nature. He is suing for worker’s comp due to a bad knee while at the same time working on the side for a man he dislikes, but is attracted to that man's wife. When Sully’s estranged son shows up with a grandson he’d never met, Sully must deal with emotion at a level he usually avoids. Newman was closing in on 70 when he appeared in this drama, gracefully aging into his on-screen roles, and commanding every scene in which he appears.

Dylan Walsh as the estranged son who shows up with a child of his own, presents the emotional balance to Newman’s stoicism, while Bruce Willis emerges powerfully as the boss he dislikes. Willis agreed to a substantial pay cut because, at the time, he was successful in his Die Hard movies, but his attempts to branch out as a serious actor (In Country, Billy Bathgate, Color of Night) all flopped. Only action movies like The Last Boy Scout netted some attention, and while Willis had played a more complicated character in that film, it didn’t result in better roles in non-action movies. Pulp Fiction, made the same year as Nobody’s Fool, hadn’t yet been released. Willis’s next movie after Nobody’s Fool was the third Die Hard movie.

Jessica Tandy registers in what would be her last film (it was released posthumously) while Phillip Seymour Hoffman had been building momentum from earlier movies like Leap of Faith and Scent of a Woman. Melanie Griffith, as the wife who creates desire and dismissiveness, is able to successfully explore a layered role with comparatively less screen time. Robert Denton is the director and also penned the adapted screenplay.

Kino's disc is a 2020 HD Master by Paramount Pictures from a 4K Scan of the 35mm original camera negative. It features audio commentary by fiilmmaker/film Historian Jim Hemphill and interviews with writer Richard Russo and actress Catherine Dent.

It is available at this link: NOBODY'S FOOL