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Dom Robinson reviews
Paramount
- Cert:
- Cat.no: PHE 8020
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Year: 1985
- Pressing: 2000
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 17 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
- Languages: 7 languages available
- Subtitles: 14 languages available
- Widescreen: 1.78:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Scene index, Theatrical Trailer, Peter Weir Interview
Director:
- Peter Weir
(The Cars That Ate Paris, Dead Poets Society, Fearless, Gallipoli, Green Card, The Mosquito Coast, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Truman Show, Witness, The Year of Living Dangerously)
Producer:
- Edward S. Feldman
Screenplay:
- Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley
Music:
- Maurice Jarre
Cast:
- John Book: Harrison Ford
Rachel: Kelly McGillis
Paul Schaeffer: Josef Sommer
Samuel: Lukas Haas
Eli Lapp: Jan Rubes
Daniel Hochleitner: Alexander Godunov
McFee: Danny Glover
Moses Hochleitner: Viggo Mortensen
Witnessis the official capacity for eight-year-old Amish boy Samuel (Lukas Haas)after he is the only one who saw the murder of an undercover narcoticsagent committed by two men, one being McFee (a pre-Lethal WeaponDanny Glover). They want to silence him and it’s up to maverickPhiladelphia cop with a daft name John Book (Harrison Ford) to protect him.
He enters the community that time forgot – parodied inKingpin, embedshimself in with the locals and falls in love with Samuel’s mother, Rachel(a pre-Top Gun Kelly McGillis).
While Ford is fine as always and came to this after the first two IndianaJones films, the story plods along for nearly two hours and turns outso predictable – it’s just the setting that isn’t often touched upon.
The picture is presented in an anamorphic 16:9 ratio, but has a grainy lookthroughout which surely shouldn’t have pass through Paramount’s qualitycontrol department.The average bitrate is a high 8.5Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound has been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English alone. I haveno complaints with the quality, but it’s hardly an action-packed film andas such is used for occasional directional effects only.
Extras : Chapters :17 chapters for the 108-minute running time. Not quite enough really. Languages/Subtitles :Dolby Digital 5.1 in English alone. Surround sound for the French, Czech,German and Italian communities, while the Polish and Spanish are monotonous.Subtitles are available in English (and hard of hearing), Croatian, Danish,Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese,Spanish, Swedish and Turkish. And there’s more… :An anamorphic 16:9 widescreen trailer lasting almost 80 secondsand a seven-minute interview with director Peter Weir. Both you’llwatch once and probably not go back to. Menu :A basic static and silent menu with a shot of the front cover and the usualoptions.
So, I didn’t enjoy this film but if you did, it’s difficult to recommend thisdisc given the picture problems and lack of any lasting extras.
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.