Glory

War is hell. War is especially hellish when the 'tactics' of the day call for you to stride, wave after wave, into oncoming fire.

Marching into hot lead must have been the hip thing back in the 1860s, because more men died in the American Civil War than in the Korean, Vietnam and First World War put together. You can read about it at CivilWar.com, and in fact, you'll even find mention of the events depicted in this here film. 'Cos this here, this is history, matey.

Specifically, we're looking at the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. That's right, people volunteered to be slaughtered by the thousands. That's not why the 54th was special though; they were in fact the first black regiment in American history. Their bravery fighting a suicidal battle against Confederate troops at Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863 led to a rethink on the parts of the top brass who had previously considered black soldiers to be inferior under fire.

Superb performances all round, classy cinematography and a script that avoids heaping on the cheese lead to three Academy Awards, including one for Best Supporting Actor for young Denzel Washington.

As I've come to expect from Columbia, this is another quality transfer with realistically muted colours, good shadow detail, generally nice sharpness and an overall filmic look without any glaring flaws to pull you out of the moment. Of course, the disc has anamorphic enhancement, so you're getting the best the format can deliver.

The film was shot with quite a small budget, but the cinematography never shows it. Cunning use of smoke and filters give the appropriate look to battle scenes and some scenes at the Battle of Antietam were actually taken from a re-enactment by a couple of thousand Civil War revivalists, which added a sense of scale that the filmmakers could otherwise not have afforded to pull off.

Bar a couple of minor aliasing moments, I noticed no film-to-video artefacts, and the original negative seems to have been in extremely good shape, with no film scratches or dirt to be seen.

This film was originally mixed for Dolby Surround, and this Dolby Digital 5.1 remix stays pretty faithful to the limitations of the older format. I had a definite feeling of listening to analogue tape rather than a digital PCM master, detecting a gentle round-off of the high frequencies which was actually rather restful on the ears. Viewers with harsh-sounding equipment will be thankful.

In general, the front speakers dominate the soundstage, with gentle envelopment from the surrounds. Things pick up somewhat during battle scenes, but this is no Saving Private Ryan. There are less extreme dynamic shifts than a modern mix, and certain effects are less directional.

The score is reasonable, if over-reliant on the standard Horner trick of repeating a motif ad-nauseam until it evokes a reaction from the audience (yes, just like Titanic).

Columbia generally do a good job with their extras and we're not let down here, with a stack of informative and entertaining features.

• Audio Commentary - by director Edward Zwick. Not so much technical information, but a lot of detail on the logistics of making a picture with a cast of this size.
• Isolated Music Score - something I wish we could have more often, especially in 5.1 surround, as this soundtrack is.
• Deleted Scenes
• Documentaries

A classy film with a classy presentation, and even better, we get far more on the Australian disc than the Americans do. If a purer form of irony on DVD exists, I haven't come across it.