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Dom Robinson reviews
Columbia TriStar
- Cat.no: UDR 90019
- Cert: 12
- Running time: 107 minutes
- Year: 1994
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: 7 languages available
- Subtitles: 7 languages available
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes
Director:
- Curtis Hanson
(Bad Influence, The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, L.A. Confidential)
Producers:
- David Foster and Lawrence Turman
Screenplay:
- Denis O’Neill
Music:
- Jerry Goldsmith
Cast:
- Gail: Meryl Streep (Before and After, Bridges of Madison County, A Cry in the Dark, Death Becomes Her, The Deer Hunter, Defending Your Life, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, House of the Spirits, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Manhunter, Marvin’s Room,Out of Africa, Plenty, Postcards from the Edge, She-Devil, Silkwood, Sophie’s Choice)
Wade: Kevin Bacon (Apollo 13, Criminal Law, Diner, A Few Good Men, Flatliners, Footloose, JFK, Murder in the First, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Picture Perfect, Sleepers, Tremors)
Tom: David Strathairn (Bob Roberts, A Dangerous Woman, Eight Men Out, The Firm, Home for the Holidays, L.A. Confidential, A League of their Own, Losing Isaiah, Lost in Yonkers, Memphis Belle, Mother Night, Passion Fish, Shadows and Fog,Silkwood, Sneakers, Stars and Bars)
Roarke: Joseph Mazello (Jersey Girl, Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Presumed Innocent, Radio Flyer, Shadowlands, Three Wishes)
Terry: John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights, Boys, Dolores Claiborne, Hard Eight, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape ?)
The River Wildstars Meryl Streep as one half of a marriage that’s nearly on the rocks.In a bid to put it right she takes her son (Jurassic Park‘s Joseph Mazello)for a birthday treat on a white-water rafting trip with her overworked husband(David Strathairn). While out there, they encounter bad guys Wade (KevinBacon) and Terry (John C. Reilly) who end up putting them in a life-threateningsituation.
Being a typical Hollywood film of good versus evil, it doesn’t take you too long towork out how things will end, but it’s a passable near-two hours of entertainment withsome rather well-done rafting scenes leading to a film that’s never boring and with anice turn as the enemy from Bacon, but one that won’t require constant re-watching.
The picture seems fairly free of artifacts although it has a light level of grainthat only really shows up in the darker scenes and the colours look a little dulland flat, not the full brightness you’d expect from an outdoor film. The film ispresented in its original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and is anamorphically-enhancedfor 16:9 widescreen televisions which provides 33% higher resolution and the averagebitrate is an extremely high 9.11Mb/s, maintaining a steady rate.
The sound has a fairly predictable score from Jerry Goldsmith – not his bestbut it does the job, with the good sound saved for the Gauntlet. This DVD comescomplete with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound for the English soundtrack, unlike the PALLaserdisc which could only accommodate a Dolby Surround one.
Extras : Chapters :16 chapters cover the 107 minutes of the film. Not too bad, but why do most ofthe back-catalogue Universal titles released through Columbia have to abide by thesame number regardless of their length? Languages and Subtitles :Only English is available in Dolby Digital 5.1, while French, German,Italian, Spanish, Czech and Polish can be heard in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround).Subtitles can be seen in English, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish andDanish. Filmographies, Biographies and Production Notes:Biographies with accompanying filmographies are available forStreep, Bacon, Strathairn, Mazzello and Reilly,plus director Curtis Hanson. A few pages of production notes give somebackground info on the film. Menu :Similar to the first batch of Universal releases, the menu is static and silentwith a picture mirroring the cover on the main menu while other menus containpictures of cast members. On playing the disc you see the Universal logo and acopyright message before the main menu appears.
The River Wild is Hollywood-by-numbers and a DVD that I’d recommend you rentbefore you buy, just to see if it’s your sort of thing, since it’s the type of filmthat you’ll watch once in full, but on subsequent viewings you’ll go straight tochapter 13 for where the action is.
In terms of extras, there’s no more to be found on the Region 1 DVD than what’s on here.For better films from Hanson, turn to either L.A. Confidential or Bad Influence.
FILM : ***PICTURE QUALITY: ***½SOUND QUALITY: ***EXTRAS: *——————————-OVERALL: **½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
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.