In God's Hands

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.78:1 non-16x9 enhanced, Dolby Digital 5.1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 2 - Dolby Digital City, and DVD Teaser Trailer #2
Year Released	1998	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	93:48 minutes	Other Extras	Cast Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Zalman King
Studio Distributor	Columbia Tristar	Starring	Patrick Shane Dorian Matt George Matthew Stephen Liu Shaun Tomson
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Paradise

    Answer: String it out to a looonnnnggg and boring 94 minutes and call it In God's Hands.

    To be fair, there is a market for this movie. I, unfortunately, do not fit into the appropriate demographic because;

1. I am not a surfer
2. I am not Californian
3. I was not stoned when I was watching this movie

    They travel, inexplicably, to several out-of-the-way places around the world, where they surf. The ultimate goal is to end up in Hawaii for the ultimate wave. Along the way, they seem to pick up a woman, a bunch of other surfers, and a photographer-surfer through means that are not adequately explained. When they are not surfing or training or travelling, they naval-gaze and philosophize for protracted periods of time.

    In its favour, the surfing footage is absolutely sensational, both aurally and visually, but this would really have been much better as a short documentary rather than as a feature film. In a nutshell, In God's Hands sinks like a stone.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.40:1. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was generally sharp and clear. Some of the surfing shots were a little hazy, but I suspect this is inherent in the nature of surf photography. Shadow detail was acceptable and there was no low level noise.

    The colours were unusually rendered, with many early scenes tinted very brown. I presume that this was the intent of the cinematographer, as the colours returned to more conventional hues as the movie progressed.

    For the first time in a Columbia Tristar transfer, I fancied that I could see MPEG artefacts in the transfer. These occurred in a number of the shots of the surf, with just a hint of blockiness about the waves. There were no film-to-video artefacts in this transfer, and minimal film artefacts.

Audio

    Dialogue was generally easy to understand, even to the extent of sounding clearly ADR processed at times. Sometimes, small portions of the dialogue was distorted.

    There were no audio sync problems with this disc.

    The score by Paradise was very ambient in nature and suited the on-screen imagery nicely.

    The surround channels were used variably. During the surfing scenes, they were very aggressively utilized - indeed the opening sequence was absolutely amazing in the precision of sound placement within the sound field and the aggressive nature of the surround use. My hopes for something aurally amazing were quickly quashed, however, when the sound collapsed down to a basically mono mix for the non-surfing sequences.

    The .1 channel was also unevenly used. Once again, it was very aggressively used during the surfing sequences, to the point of drawing attention to itself, but then it fell away to silence for the remainder of the movie. The overall effect was that of a poorly-integrated .1 mix which detracted from the overall impact of the movie instead of enhancing it.

Menu - 4:3

Theatrical Trailer

Biographies - Cast

    The video quality is acceptable, but not great.

    The audio quality is variable and ranges from superbly enveloping to flat mono.

    The extras are limited.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
19th September 1999