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Dom Robinson reviews
Digital Entertainment
- Cert:
- Cat.no: DED 6037
- Running time: 106 minutes
- Year: 1985
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
- Chapters: 13 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Mono)
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: None
- Fullscreen: 4:3
- 16:9-enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £14.99
- Extras: Photo Gallery
Director:
- Francis Megahy
Producer:
- George Taylor
Screenplay:
- Andrew Payne
Music:
- Denis King
Cast :
- Arthur Daley: George Cole
Terry McCann: Dennis Waterman
Nikki South: Amanda Pays
Dave: Glynn Edwards
Rycott: Peter Childs
Chisholm: Patrick Malahide
Helen Spender: Honor Blackman
Mark Graves: James Coombes
Meredith Gascoyne: Maurice Denham
James Crane: Adam Faith
Ted Moore: James Faulkner
Francois: Ralph Bates
Harry Ridler: Ronald Lacey
Angelo Cappelloni: Manning Redwood
Angelo’s Girlfriend: Debbie Arnold
Browning: Karl Howman
Pope: Jesse Birdsall
While we wait for the series to hopefully get a complete DVD release, Arfur and Terry begin on DVD with Minder on the Orient Express.
While out on a security job, Terry (Dennis Waterman) spots a young woman, Nikki South (Amanda Pays), being attacked on the street and mugged. As ever the ladies’ man rushes over to help out and she rewards him with two first class tickets for a trip above the Orient Express. Naturally, Arthur Daley (George Cole) steps in to botch things up such that the ticket for the first choice of Terry’s totty instead goes to our “car salesman of the year”, or something like that.
There’s bluff and double-bluff abound as the bullion stolen in a robbery orchestrated by the late Jack South has never been recovered. Those starting with the loot are Nikki and her fiance Mark Graves (James Coombes), but they are pursued by such luminaries as hard man James Crane (Adam Faith), the slimy Harry Ridler (Ronald Lacey), his accomplice, Helen Spender (Honor Blackman), gangster Angelo Cappelloni (Manning Redwood) and we must give a mention to his gorgeous, busty, blonde girlfriend played by Debbie Arnold, who turned up in Eastenders a couple of years ago and the years have still been kind to her.
On the side of the law is the ever-failing Chisholm (Patrick Malahide) who teams up with French detective Francois (the late Ralph Bates) from Interpol to crack crime as only they (don’t really) know how (!)
Any violence or fisticuffs is as cartoon-like and fake as it ever was, plus there’s the inclusion of the Winchester’s sarcastic barman Dave (Glynn Edwards) and it’s also probably the only PG-certified film to feature the word “ejaculated”, even though it’s a faux pas from Arfur.
Presented in 4:3 fullscreen as originally filmed, the picture is very clean and pretty much free of artifacts, even if it is showing its age a little. It’s a shame that after the widescreen release of The Sweeney on DVD from PT Video the same treatment hasn’t been applied here. The average bitrate is a mediocre 4.55Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 6Mb/s.
The sound is bog-standard mono which never gets a chance to shine, but the dialogue is clear.
Extras : Just a Photo Gallery with ten measly pictures that you’ll never tire of ignoring after the first viewing.
There are a mere 13 chapters, no subtitles and the menus are static, even if they do feature a piece of the music made for this TV special.
I’m a big fan of the old-style Minder where Arfur used to turn up at Terry’s flat to be greeted by the sight of big-titted blondes roaming around with their threp’ny bits flopping about, in the days before Waterman left and Anthea Turner‘s brother-in-law, Gary Webster turned up to make a comparative mockery of the format.
It’s a shame there’s no extras to speak of and a complete lack of subtitles, but the budget price is still worth it given that it won’t cost much more than the video tape.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.