Director Daniel Monzon’s ‘The Kovak Box’ could very well be the best Direct-To-Video movie I’ve ever seen.  Admittedly, this could construed as faint praise, but being the best of anything is an accomplishment, now isn’t it?

Timothy Hutton is a Michael Chritonesque science fiction writer by the name of David Norton who has been flown on a to a Spanish Island with his fiancé Jane (Georgia Mackenzie) to hold a conference on his works and the overall state of science fiction.  After the conference he meets an old man (David Kelly) who gives David a copy of his very first novel ‘Gloomy Sunday’ to sign again, as David already autographed the novel some twenty five years earlier.  Though David finds that first novel suspect, the old man insists it’s his greatest work. 

David soon receives a DVD in his hotel showing in graphic detail a monkey killing itself, and while this confusing video is playing his fiancé receives a phone call and then propels herself off of the hotel balcony to her death.  Across town, a young woman named Sylvia (Lucia Jimenez) who was on the same plane as David and his fiancée also receives a phone call and soon launches HERSELF out HER hotel window.  Fortunately for Sylvia, her fall is broken by the awning and she manages to survive.  Sylvia knows she had no reason to commit suicide and sensing something is seriously askew, is desperate to get out of town, but there are other powers at play here and these people decide to kill the woman before she can get free.  She manages to escape to the airport, but still suffering from the drugs administered to her earlier, she is having a tough go at it.  She sees David, who is also on his way out of town, and remembering him from the hospital next to his dying fiancée, she realizes these self window tossings can’t be a coincidence and manages to convince and enlist the curious mystery writer to delve deeper into this ever growing conspiracy.

Aside from being a smartly done, well shot, well directed thriller with a competent script and good performances, I think the creators of ‘The Kovak Box’ were smart in doing a couple of things with their film.  There’s no big twist at the end of this film.  ‘There’s no ‘Oh My God!  HE’S the Killer!’ moment shoehorned into the narrative which a lot of these so called thrillers feel compelled to put into movies nowadays.  Damn you Kaiser Soze!  So since the story is being told straight, the narrative was able to smoothly flow and not backtrack on itself, which tends to get a lot of these kinds of movies in all kinds of trouble.  This is not to say that movie is predictable and without its surprises, it just managed to craft them within its natural flow as opposed to dropping them out of left field.  I also liked the way the character of Kovak, as played with wicked relish by the kindly septuagenarian David Kelly was able to manipulate David Norton, and do it in such a way that Norton knew that he was being manipulated yet still couldn’t find a way out of Kovak’s complex web.  I also like the pacing of the film, slow and methodical where necessary and able to pick up the pace when needed.

After being around movies and the business of films for a while I understand why ‘The Kovak Box’, despite being a fine film, far better than a lot of the stuff playing in the multiplex today, is a DTV release.  Timothy Hutton was very good in this movie as author David Norton, but this isn’t 1986 and ‘Taps’ and ‘The Falcon and the Snowman’ were some time ago, so no distributor, with no other big stars to speak of is going to wide release this to theaters.  It’s not scary enough, or gory enough, or thrilling enough to try to ride the horror, ‘Die Hard’ or ‘Hostel’ train and there’s no romance to grab at that particular demographic either.  Though actress Lucia Jimenez does look quite fetching in a pair of white panties, which probably doesn’t qualify as romance for most.  But it does for me!  She should also try to smile more.  She was one angry girl in this movie.  I mean she had good reason to be pissed off, but still, I’d like to see a smile here and there.

No, the only thing ‘The Kovak Box’ has going for it was that it was a good movie, and since when has that ever been enough?  I’ll tell you what, it’s more than enough for me and it’s also appreciated.  Here’s to seeing a few more smartly crafted, reasonably intelligent thrillers such as this one.