Dead Man Walking

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, MPEG 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1995	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	119 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu	Cast & Crew
Region	2	Director	Tim Robbins
Distributor	Polygram	Starring	Susan Sarandon Sean Penn Robert Prosky Raymond J. Barry R. Lee Ermey Scott Wilson
RRP	$34.95	Music	David Robbins

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Pan & Scan	MPEG	2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	None
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (MPEG 2.0) German (MPEG 2.0)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Macrovision	?
Subtitles	English German English Hard of Hearing German Hard of Hearing

Plot Synopsis

Dead Man Walking is the tremendously powerful based-on-fact story of Sister Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), a nun who becomes the spiritual advisor to a convicted murderer on Death Row, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn). The story covers the progress towards redemption of Matthew Poncelet as well as the growth of Sister Prejean as the result of her contact with Matthew.

Don't expect sanitized Hollywood fare here, this is raw and intense. The movie does not make judgements, nor does it ever stoop to the level of preaching to the audience. Instead, it presents both characters as their flawed selves, and it allows us to make up our own minds as to their fates.

The movie is based around Sister Prejean and Matthew Poncelet, so they have by far the majority of on-screen time, a lot of it very intense and emotional, and very intimate, with many extreme close-ups and two-shots. It is an eerie movie, and one which will move you, whichever side of the capital punishment debate you find yourself on. Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn are absolutely magnificent in their roles. Susan Sarandon won a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for her role in this film, and I am surprised that Best Actor, Best Director and Best Picture eluded this movie. I would guess that the Academy were loathe to give such awards to a movie with such a depressing storyline.

Transfer Quality

The first comment I should make on this movie is that it has been released to the Australian market accidentally Region-coded to Region 2. Initially, I thought that this would make me give it a lemon award, but then I know that replacements are on the way, and pretty much everyone in Australia would be able to play it as is anyhow. Therefore, I have decided to ignore the fact that this disc is incorrectly Region-coded. If you have a Region 4 only player, then you will need to wait a few weeks for the new release, properly region-coded, to be released. Hopefully, they don't change anything else about the movie with the region fix, since it is a brilliant disc otherwise.

Video

The video transfer of this movie is, in a word, magnificent. It had the quality look about it that is characteristic of Columbia Tristar DVD transfers, so I would not be surprised if Polygram were using Columbia Tristar or Sony for their telecine work. This is a good sign, boding well for their future releases.

The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The other side of the disc carries a Pan & Scan version of the movie, which crops some of the side information but retains the vertical information.

The transfer was razor sharp and crystal clear, with excellent shadow detail, and no low level noise.

The colours were superbly rendered in this transfer, with fully saturated colours and deep hues with no bleeding to be seen.

Very rare and scattered MPEG artefacts were seen in some of the scenes involving deliberately aged material, where the deliberately-added film grain on occasion took on a slight blockiness.

Film-to-video artefacts were basically non-existant, with some trivial aliasing seen on the grille separating Matthew and Sister Prejean on rare occasions, but no other problems were seen.

Film artefacts were few and far between.

Audio

There are two audio tracks to choose from on this DVD. The default is English MPEG 2.0. This is the track that I listened to. The other track present is a German soundtrack in MPEG 2.0.

Dialogue was clear almost all of the time, critically important for a movie such as this one.

The music was rare, and suitably sombre when it was present. It added nicely to the movie's ambience when it was present. It was mostly present in the centre channel, though rarely it had a slightly stereo presence.

The surround channel was not used as far as I could tell. Some limited ambience was placed in the left and right channels, but this was very rare. This was essentially a monophonic soundtrack.

The .1 channel was not specifically used, however my surround sound processor sent some signal to the subwoofer, but only in a very limited fashion.

Extras

The extras are very limited on this disc, even though at first sight there seems to be more on offer than there really is.

Cast & Crew Biographies

Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins get biographies in the extras.

Theatrical Trailer

The 4:3 side of this disc has the theatrical trailer on it, in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio with MPEG 2.0 sound.

Summary

Dead Man Walking is a stunning, powerful movie experience that you will remember for a long time to come. Highly recommended unless you have a Region 4 only player in which case, I recommend that you wait for the new release of the movie which fixes the Region-coding issue.

The video quality is superb.

The audio quality is essentially monophonic, but clear.

The extras are very limited.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment

DVD	Pioneer DV-505, using S-Video output
Display	Loewe Art-95 95cm direct view CRT in 16:9 mode, via the S-Video input. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Audio Decoder	AMC AV-81HT Prologic/THX decoder. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials.
Amplification	2 x EA Playmaster 100W per channel stereo amplifiers for Left, Right, Left Rear and Right Rear; Philips 360 50W per channel stereo amplifier for Centre and Subwoofer
Speakers	Philips S2000 speakers for Left, Right; Polk Audio CS-100 Centre Speaker; Apex AS-123 speakers for Left Rear and Right Rear; Yamaha B100-115SE subwoofer