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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer (RSDL )
  Languages
  • Italian: Dolby Digital Stereo
  • French: Dolby Digital Mono
  • Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
  • German: Dolby Digital Mono
  • English: Dolby Digital Quad Surround
  Subtitles
    English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Hebrew, Czech, Greek, Polish, Hungarian, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Hindi
  Extras
  • 7 Deleted scenes
  • Theatrical trailer
  • 2 Audio commentary - 1. by director Taylor Hackford and writer Eric Hughes and 2. Bridges, Woods and Hackford
  • Cast/crew biographies
  • 2 Music video - Phil Collins

Against All Odds - Collector's Edition

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 117 mins . G . PAL

  Feature
Contract

The suspense/thrillers of the early 80's just don't seem to cut it with todays crop. Basic Instinct took the genre to an all new level that hasn't been surpassed in a long while but in this day and age, you could get away with a lot more than from a decade before.

Terry Brogan (Jeff Bridges) is a professional football player who's career is cut short because of the politics involved within the club. He's now out of a job, with no money so when he is offered a chance to make make some quick big bucks, he takes it. He's been hired by long time friend and nightclub owner Jake Wise (James Woods) to track down his ex-girlfriend Jessie Tyler (Rachel Ward).

Terry tracks her down and soon falls in love with her and it soon becomes obvious that Jake has hired out someone else to find the two of them. Things become even more interesting when the people who are higher up in the gangster food chain make their presence felt. The plot thickens and twists start to appear as Terry realises he's gotten himself embroiled into something that wasn't what he really wanted, to get back into the football team.

  Video
Contract

Given the age of the movie, this is an exceptional transfer. It seems that alot of care has been taken to restore the movie to it's original quality in both audio and video. The 1.85:1 16x9 transfer is comparable to some of todays films.

Black levels are very good with shadow detail been very prominent at times. Most of the movie occurs during the day but the night scenes come up trumps as is expected of dvd. Color saturation is pretty much perfect with some beautiful renderings of the rich blue waters and lush country-side.

Detail in the image is pretty good considering it's age and sharpness suprised me at times. It really amazes me at times how some older films can look and it's disheartening when you see films that are younger than these looking alot worse. There is a slight amount of grain in the image that isn't a detriment in any way.

  Audio
Contract

This is a first that I've heard of on dvd; Quad Surround. This audio format is, put simply, a four speaker system whereby we have left and right front and left and right rear. It was a little tricky to determine if the rears were discrete given the stereo separation occuring in the front sound stage during the movie as sounds drifted into the surrounds with a similar separation.

The audio has one major flaw; the music is very overpowering of the dialogue. Dialogue is fine and clear throughout but when the eerie soundtrack kicks in it seems a few db above everything else. This inconsistency is a detering factor at times.

Taken less critically, the musical soundtrack provides a full surround ambience with some classical guitar taking center stage toward the middle of the movie.

  Extras
Contract

A surprising array of extras for this collectors edition which shows that this movie went through a proper restoration process to provide a disc with the best possible presentation currently available for this title. DVD should always be a process of preserving movies in the best home video format currently available.

  • 2 Audio Commentaries - one by director Taylor Hackford and screen writer Eric Hughes and another with director and actors Jeff Bridges and James Woods. It's a tiring affair to go through both commentaries so bare with me as I try to remember them. Both commentaries are good in their own right with Taylor providing similar insight on both of them. It'd be hard to do two commentaries of the same movie. Jeff and James provide some laughs with their insight and it's interesting to note just how some scenes were simply shot rather than scripted which in the end came off better.
  • Theatrical trailer - a full frame trailer with a suspensful tone.
  • 7 deleted scenes - another reference to the power of dvd preserving scenes that didn't make the cut. It seems more directors know what dvd can do for them and they are using them. These scenes are merely extensions of existing scenes that were cut for quality reasons, as mentioned by the director himself.
  • 2 Music Videos - Kid Creole and the Coconuts sing My Male Curiosity and Phil Collins sings Against All Odds. Both are in full frame 2 channel stereo and not of the greatest quality video.
  • Cast/Crew filmographies - the usual suspect.

  Overall  
Contract

A very good suspense thriller with twists and turns keeping your interest levels high.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=256
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      And I quote...
    ""
    - Steve Koukoulas
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Pioneer DV-505 Gold
    • TV:
          Hitachi CMT2979 68cm
    • Receiver:
          Yamaha RX-V595
    • Speakers:
          Peterson Labs 100Watts
    • Centre Speaker:
          Sherwood SC-60E
    • Surrounds:
          Sherwood LS-502
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard RCA
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
      Recent Reviews:
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