CutThroat Island (Uncut European release) on DVD

• Cat.no: PDFM 60292
• Cert: 12
• Running time: 122 minutes
• Year: 1995
• Pressing: 1998
• Region(s): 2, PAL
• Chapters: 25 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 (Eng, Fre, Ger)
  & Dolby Surround (Spa, Ita)
• Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian
• Subtitles: English, French, Netherlands, Swedish
• Widescreen: 2.35:1
• 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
• Macrovision: Yes
• Price: £N/A
• Extras : Scene index.
  

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  Director:

  Renny Harlin

  (Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, The Long Kiss Goodnight)

Producers:

Screenplay:

Robert King, Marc Norman

Music:

Cast:

Morgan : Geena Davis (The Long Kiss Goodnight, Thelma and Louise, Beetlejuice, The Fly)
Shaw : Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket, Short Cuts)
Dawg : Frank Langella (Eddie, Dave, Brainscan)
John Reed : Maury Chaykin (Devil In A Blue Dress, The Adjuster)
Ainslee : Patrick Malahide (The Long Kiss Goodnight, Minder (TV))
Glasspoole : Stan Shaw (Roots, Runaway)

Cutthroat Islandteams up the director, Renny Harlin, and star,Geena Davis (also husband and wife…) who went on to make 1996’s,The Long Kiss Goodnight, in a pirate adventure also starring MatthewModine

The year is 1668, and Geena Davis stars as Morgan Adams, a pirate, who after arecent altercation with Dawg (Frank Langella, currently starring in thecinema hit Eddie) and his men, sees her father die in the struggle toescape. His dying wish is that she takes over the captaincy of his ship,The Morning Star, and to cut his hair to the scalp. When next on board,she brings the captain-election bickering to an end by announcing herself asthe new captain, holding up the piece of her father’s scalp which shows atreasure map of Cutthroat Island…

..or rather there are three pieces. The second is held by her uncle, so noproblems there, but the third is in the hands of Dawg. Another problem, is thatthe map is written in Latin, so the search is on for someone who can translate.Morgan’s ship lands in Port Royal, Jamaica, where she buys Shaw (MatthewModine), a slave who she buys to do the job, and together as they break outof the town with a couple of crew members, the action begins with a carriagechase, with the locals in pursuit including the owner of the carriage, Ainslee(Patrick Malahide, most well known as Inspector Chisholm from the TVseries Minder), as well as John Reed, who he has just bribed to turntraitor on Morgan (ie. if he doesn’t lead him to her, Reed will be shufflingoff his mortal coil more sooner than he thought).

Geena Davis does an adequate job as Morgan, not that it’s much of a taxing partand a far cry from something like Thelma and Louise or Angie,both of which gave her much more to get her teeth into, while Matthew Modinejoins in with the wisecracks, but does little else apart from stand and smile.It’s interesting to note that his part was originally written for MichaelDouglas, but he literally jumped ship from the project.

Frank Langella grimaces and gnarls his way through his lines of script ina straight-forward fashion, but you certainly can’t beat the appearance ofPatrick Malahide, also seen in The Long Kiss Goodnight, albeit usinga horrendous Texan American accent of some description then. Using his ownvoice this time, I kept expecting him to mention Arfur Daley… 🙂

The picture is perfect nearly all the time. A badly-encoded DVD would haveproblems with such a dark film as this on all the areas of brown, black andgrey, resulting in blocking and artifacts. However, this disc has clearly beengiven good treatment in the encoding because the only parts I saw briefartifacts appear were on areas of smoke after a cannon or gun had been firedand this is only visible when the weapon is executed in close-up. All thedaylight scenes look naturally brilliant.

I could not determine an average bitrate figure, but rest assured the qualityof the picture is not in doubt. The film is presented in its original widescreenratio of 2.35:1, the widescreen framing being essential for Renny Harlin’sextreme compositions and stunning sets and locations and it is enhanced for16:9 widescreen televisions thus allowing for higher resolution.

The surround sound also lashes out, especially in chapters such as StraightThrough The Storm, Open Fire, and the aforementioned CarriageChase. English, French and German purchasers of this title will be pleasedto hear that their language is available in Dolby Digital 5.1, while Spanishand Italian punters get Dolby Surround.

As stated earlier, English, French and German languages are presented in DolbyDigital 5.1, while Spanish and Italian are only available in Dolby Surround.

Subtitles only come in four formats: English, French, Netherlands and Swedish.

Menu :The interactive menu works very well and just dragging the mouse pointer overan option highlights it.

The main menu doesn’t come up first though. You have to sit through a briefcopyright warning, the usual Pioneer introduction, plus the Dolby Digital”Canyon” intro which is worth watching if you haven’t seen it before, butafterwards you just want to skip past it.

When the menu appears it is available in seven languages, which begs thequestion: why so few subtitles options as these menu languages collect allthe language and subtitle selections together.

One good thing to mention about this European Region 2 release is that it’suncut.

Since I reviewed the PAL Laserdisc I’ve found that this film was only cut byapproximately four seconds to get a PG-rating for UK audiences. I understandthat the pieces cut are headbutts and other bits of violence, mostly performedby Geena Davis, although some of this is still quite clearly visible, and evenin its form on this disc, it has its violent moments including a nastyneckbreak from Davis in chapter 18 (Morgan To The Rescue). Why the cuts?Well, the BBFC usually tend to have a hard time passing scenes of violencetowards women, so it doesn’t follow that violence by women wouldbe any different. However, it might not necessarily be the BBFC’s faultentirely if the film company, Carolco, requested a PG-certificate.

In the past, other works of director Renny Harlin’s have suffered at the handsof either the BBFC or the respective film company. Cliffhanger (1993)was cut for a 15-certificate, and for Die Hard 2 (1990) the cinemaversion and pan-and-scan video release were also cut to a 15-certificate. Thewidescreen video and PAL Laserdisc are both available as an uncut18-certificate, although the BBFC will now no longer allow two versions of afilm to be released with differing certificates.

How good is this film though? Not as good as one could have hoped for in theeyes of this reviewer, but for anyone who is a fan of the film they’ll beglad of the quality on display, even if no-one will be too happy about thecomplete lack of extras.

Its competition in the DVD market is the Region 1 release – similarly uncut -and with 30 chapters instead of 25, plus both widescreen and pan-and-scanversions of the film (one version per side), but while each version only getsthe single-layer treatment, the European Region 2 release enjoys a dual-layerproduction, thus allowing for more Dolby Digital languages.

FILM : **PICTURE QUALITY: ****½SOUND QUALITY: *****EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: ***½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.