Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant New York lawyer who has chosen to use her skills for the greater good and not only works for legal aide but is well known for her stance against big companies that are tearing down heritage style buildings all over New York. She meets her match though when she goes up against the Wade Corporation to protect a Coney Island community centre from being demolished.
George Wade (Hugh Grant) is merely the face of the Wade Corporation and is also looking for a new and attractive chief council. When he and Lucy strike a deal, she agrees to work for him and in return he agrees to keep the community centre. Whilst Lucy’s work is somewhat outstanding she finds it hard to come to grips with Wade’s immaturity and his constant use of her for means other than what her job as chief council calls for. The job comes to breaking point when he calls her out of a friends wedding to help him pick out a suit and she gives her notice.
From here we see the all too familiar comedic romance story prevail, and Lucy begins to battle with her feelings for George when she is threatened by a younger and more beautiful replacement.

VIDEO
The 1.78:1 (not 2.35 as stated on the packaging) anamorphic widescreen transfer is very nice indeed. I wouldn’t class it as reference quality but it’s pretty close.
The entire transfer is relatively sharp and clear. There appears to be an intended softness to the transfer, which suits the mood of the film quite well. I found the outdoor scenes and in particular close up shots of the main actors were the softest. I don’t feel that this is a problem with the transfer though, rather an intended effect to the film.
Shadow detail is great and only on rare occasions does it fall below perfect. Generally there are some nice deep blacks and brilliant bright whites with a fabulous tonal range in between. The tone of the film is complimented perfectly by a rich colour palette, which gives a calm and homely feeling at times and a cold, busy feeling at other times when required.
There are no MPEG artefacts, very little in the way of film artefacts, and very little shimmering and ailiasing.
The layer change at 45.52 is well placed but the pause is still a little noticeable.

AUDIO
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track is almost as equally good as the video transfer.
While there is nothing overly spectacular to speak of in the audio track it did hold its place well. Dialogue is always clear and easy to understand and this is important as the film is primarily dialogue based. The surrounds are used sparingly in the score and to support on screen action with sound effects. The LFE channel doesn’t get a lot of use but is used appropriately and does kick in when required.
The score from John Powell is not terribly memorable but is befitting of the film. This is not his best work by any means but is quite good when compared to other films of this genre. The score seems to carry most of the emotion in the film and will hold you in a scene for much longer than your attention span would expect.

EXTRAS