Director
Stephen Frears

Cast/Voices
Dustin Hoffman,
Geena Davis,
Andy Garcia

Music
George Fenton

Geena Davis plays the role of Gayle Gayley a successful and award winning TV journalist who finds herself in a plane crash on the outskirts of town. Bernie LaPlante played by Dustin Hoffman is the unwitting hero who saves her and 53 others from the burning plane wreckage. After the ordeal though he quickly goes back to his shady stolen goods deals and thinks nothing of his heroic efforts. That is until the TV station, which Gayle works for, offers a one million-dollar reward to the man who saved her life.

As you can imagine there are thousands of people who turn up to claim the reward, everyone it seems but Burnie LaPlante who is in court for sentencing in going to jail. He never makes it to claim the reward and instead John Bubber (Andy Garcia) claims it. John is the expected humble recipient of the money and the fame that goes with it. He laps up the media attention and the fact that the entire country believes he is a hero. That is until Bernie throws a cat among the pigeons and has everyone on the edge of their seat in suspense.

All ends well though for everyone.

So How Does This Transfer Hold Up?

VIDEO
The Anamorphic Widescreen transfer was, I suppose, good compared to others but I found it difficult to watch. The film had very nicely saturated colours and natural skin tones but was very dark and shadow detail was pretty average. The entire film is on the dark side, and a lot of the scene’s in dingy bars and other indoor rooms are so dark that you have to physically refocus your eye’s to see any detail. At the beginning of the film you are introduced to the bar tender who is played by Tom Arnold, but if it weren’t for his voice it would take you a while to realise it because you can’t see any detail in his face. There were the occasional slight instances of shimmering and minimal dust specks on the transfer. In all the transfer was sharp but not very clear.

Video Highlights
Ch 02 08:32 – Lack of Shadow Detail in the bar with Tom Arnold.
Ch 11 38:44 – Nice colour saturation and skin tones.

AUDIO
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Audio was also a bit bland. There was very little use of the surrounds and only a little use of bass. Dialogue was mostly clear and sharp and the front sound stage was used quite widely to some effect. There were also no obvious sync problems.

The musical score from George Fenton was a bit of a let down. This was opportunity to put some life into the audio but alas it was very much a distant background score. I was not inspired by the music at all.

There really wasn’t anything in the way of Audio highlights.

EXTRAS
Extras were light on and pretty standard for a DVD, which is not a Collectors Edition. It was good to see a little behind the scene’s Featurette however which was moderately informative, and presented non-16x9 enhanced and sadly in a mono audio track. L

You will also find a Theatrical Trailer also presented in mono, and the standard cast and crew Bio’s.

Overall this was quite a nice story and the transfer was pretty good. The film did not move me at all and it certainly doesn’t rate in with my favourites but there will be a lot of people who will find it inspiring and touching.

Review Equipment
TV: GE 68cm (16:9 selectable)
DVD: Samsung DVD907 (via S-Video)
Receiver/Proc: Sansui A505/Sony Amp & Yamaha DSP-E390
Speakers:-
Fronts: Wharfdale Diamond R6 (on a pair of custom made stands you'd KILL for)
Centre: Venturi
Rears: Sony bookshelf

- Reviewed 29th January 2000