Skip to content
- Cat.no: UDR 90003
- Cert: 18
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 1989
- Pressing: 1999
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 16 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround), Mono
- Languages: English, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish
- Subtitles: English, Swedish, Dutch
- Fullscreen: 1.33:1 (full frame)
- 16:9-Enhanced: No
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 5
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Biographies, Filmographies, Production Notes.
Director:
- Harold Becker
(The Boost, City Hall, Malice, Mercury Rising, The Onion Field, Vision Quest)
Producers:
- Martin Bregman and Louis A. Stroller
Screenplay:
- Richard Price
Music:
- Trevor Jones
Cast:
- Frank Keller: Al Pacino (Carlito’s Way, Chinese Coffee, City Hall, Devil’s Advocate, Dick Tracy, Dog Day Afternoon, Donnie Brasco, Frankie and Johnny, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Godfather I-III, Heat, Looking for Richard, Scarface, Scent of aWoman, Serpico)
Helen: Ellen Barkin (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, The Big Easy, Diner, The Fan, Into the West, Johnny Handsome, Mac, Man Trouble, Siesta, Switch, This Boy’s Life, Wild Bill)
Sherman Touhey: John Goodman (Always, Arachnophobia, The Babe, Barton Fink, The Big Lebowski, Blues Brothers 2000, Born Yesterday, The Borrowers, The Big Easy, Fallen, The Flinstones, The Hudsucker Proxy, King Ralph, Matinee, Punchline,Raising Arizona, True Stories)
Terry: Michael Rooker (Cliffhanger, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Keys To Tulsa, Mallrats, Tombstone)
Black Guy: Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown, 187, Pulp Fiction, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace)
Sea Of Loveis a murder thriller starring Al Pacino as Frank Keller, an experienceddetective who has been on the force for 20 years. A bizarre female serialkiller is doing the rounds executing men, each death being accompanied by arecord deck playing a seven-inch single, Sea Of Love by Phil Phillipswith the Twilights, the constant use of which results in a disturbingeffect.
Accompanying him on the case is fellow detective Sherman Touhey (JohnGoodman) as the pair set up an operation in a restaurant by placing advertsin a newspaper’s ‘Lonely Hearts’ column in a bid to trap the killer by meansof the fingerprint evidence they’ll leave behind on a wine glass. Problemsare abound when Frank falls in love with prime suspect Helen (EllenBarkin) and things get worse when the attraction is reciprocated anddevelops into a full-blown affair, threatening to put his career on the lineif his worst fears are confirmed.
The film is presented in full-frame 4:3 as opposed to a widescreen or pan-and-scantransfer. The transfer has a fair bit of grain on it, usually not too distractingbut it suffers during the dark scenes. The 4:3 image though looks fine on a widescreen TVzoomed-in to either 14:9 or 16:9. The American DVD release is also fullscreen buta matted widescreen version was released on NTSC Laserdisc in 1990. I haven’t seenthat disc, but while the 4:3 picture can easily be zoomed-in to 16:9 without fear oflosing too much information, no widescreen means no anamorphic.
The average bitrate is 5.21Mb/s, occasionally peaking over 7Mb/s.
The sound on the disc surround at best, since Dolby Digital 5.1 hadn’t been inventedyet, but it won’t set your speakers on fire.
Extras : Chapters and Trailer :Like another new Universal release, Twins, this disc has only a handful of chapterswith 16 spread over 108 minutes which just isn’t enough. The theatrical trailer is alsoincluded. Languages and Subtitles :Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround) is available for dialogue in English, German andCzech, while Hungarian and Polish is mono only. Subtitles are available inEnglish, Swedish and Dutch. Production notes, Filmographies and Biographies :The disc contains some interesting production notes, plus biographies and filmographiesfor Pacino, Goodman, Ellen Barkin and director Harold Becker. Menu :Similar to Daylight, Twins and Dante’s Peak, the menu is static, witha crisp, deep red picture mirroring the cover on the main menu. Curiously, this wasnot the original artwork that featured on the film’s theatrical and video release.On playing the disc you see the Universal logo and a copyright message before the mainmenu appears.
Sea Of Love is one of the first Universal DVDs to be released under theColumbia TriStar label and one of two released in 4:3. However, since a mattedwidescreen version has been released on NTSC laserdisc, a remastered anamorphicDVD wouldn’t have gone amiss. In any case, Pacino is on top form as usual,Barkin has never looked better or sexier and the tension in the film creates anatmosphere you could cut with a knife.
This film was the first 18-certificate I saw in the cinema in January 1990,even though I wasn’t quite 18 yet (The first legal 18-rated film I saw came fourmonths later on my birthday: Society). When the video was released to buy,it was one of a few films which Universal advertised in magazines with full-pageadverts highlighting a line or two from the film in similar fashion to Empiremagazine’s ‘Classic Scenes’.
There are no more extras here than on the American DVD release and it’s an excellentfilm, but a whole twenty pounds is too much for a ten-year-old flick with asecond-rate transfer, especially when the video has been released beforehand ata budget price.
FILM : *****PICTURE QUALITY: ***SOUND 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.