The Bodyguard

BUY

General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	None
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1992	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	124:00 minutes	Other Extras	None
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Mick Jackson
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Kevin Costner Whitney Houston Gary Kemp Bill Cobbs Ralph Waite
Case	Snapper
RRP	$34.95	Music	Alan Silvestri

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English Arabic Polish Greek Czech Turkish Hungarian Icelandic Croatian English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	Yes, just slightly
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Kevin Costner is very well cast as Frank Farmer, a former CIA agent who has taken on private work as a bodyguard for people who are trying to avoid being killed. He reluctantly takes on the job of bodyguard to Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston) who unbeknownst to her has received a series of very threatening letters. Rachel is a singer, up for an Academy Award, so she is well-and-truly in the public eye, much in contrast to Frank's other clients who all preferred to keep a much lower profile.

    A battle of wills ensues between Frank and Rachel. Frank is interested in keeping Rachel alive no matter what the consequences to Rachel's personal life. Rachel is interested in maintaining her freedom and her lifestyle. Inevitably, passion flares between the two of them which leads to further tensions, and this is what the movie is all about - the turbulent development of the relationship between The Bodyguard and The Diva. Tie in some terrific music by Whitney Houston, and you have a recipe for a great date movie.

Video

    The transfer is variably sharp, with some shots looking very soft and others looking razor sharp. This is the look of both the original movie and the laserdisc, and so the DVD transfer accurately reflects the Director's intentions for the look of the movie. One area where the transfer does fall a little short is in the degree of graininess exhibited at times by the transfer. The great majority of the movie was very clean, crisp and clear, but some scenes were marred by significant grain in the background of the scene. Shadow detail is generally quite good, though I felt that some of the blacks could and should have been a little deeper. Low level noise is not a problem.

    The colours tended to be on the muted side. Once again, this is how I recall the movie from its theatrical exhibition and from the laserdisc, so the transfer has remained true to the original. A few scenes were very vibrant, but these were rare.

    MPEG artefacts were occasionally visible in the backgrounds of some scenes with high foreground motion. These would manifest themselves as slight blockiness of the background image. None of this was particularly bad, and most of you will not be bothered by this, but it is unusual to see any MPEG artefacts in transfers these days. Film to video artefacts consisted of some image wobble that predominately affected the early part of the movie, and which got a little distracting at times. Film artefacts were pleasantly rare, but certainly noticeable at times.

    The packaging for this DVD incorrectly states that there are only English, Arabic and English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles on this DVD. There are actually considerably more than this - see the table at the start of this review for the full list of subtitles available on this DVD.

Audio

    Dialogue was easy to understand and generally clear, even in scenes with high levels of ambient noise.

    There were no audio sync problems noted with this transfer.

    The score of this movie consisted of a mix of Whitney Houston songs and an Alan Silvestri score. I immensely enjoyed both aspects of this score. Whitney Houston's songs were integral to the plot of the movie, and Alan Silvestri's orchestrations added significantly to the emotional impact of the movie.

    The surround channels were nicely used for music and for ambience. There was a lot of dynamic range in this soundtrack, with punchy special effects and musical numbers interspersed with periods of relative silence. Indeed, silence is used to good effect with this movie, with explosions of sound ripping through periods of stillness and silence.

    The subwoofer aggressively supported the music and the sound effects, and added a very satisfactory bottom end onto this soundtrack.

Menu

Copyright Messages

    The Region 4 version misses out on;

• Cast Biographies
• Production Notes

    The video quality is acceptable, though there was excessive graininess at times.

    The audio quality is very good, with a very dynamic surround presence.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
11th February 2000