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| Category | Action | Theatrical Trailer(s) | None |
| Rating |
| Other Trailer(s) | None |
| Year Released | 1997 | Commentary Tracks | None |
| Running Time | 112:48 minutes | Other Extras | None |
| RSDL/Flipper | No/No |
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| Start Up | Movie | ||
| Region | 2,4 | Director | Thomas Carter |
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Distributor |
Warner Home Video |
Starring | Eddie Murphy
Michael Rapaport Michael Wincott |
| Case | Amaray | ||
| RRP | $34.95 | Music | Steve Porcaro |
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| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | MPEG | None |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Dolby Digital | 5.1 |
| 16x9 Enhancement | Yes | Soundtrack Languages | English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
French (Dolby Digital 2.0  )
Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 ) |
| Theatrical Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 |
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| Macrovision | ? | ||
| Subtitles | English
Dutch Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
A jewellery heist which goes wrong introduces the obligatory bad guy, and a most excellent bad guy he is indeed. We are also introduced to Scott's love interest, Ronnie (Carmen Ejogo). Ronnie is kidnapped and the ransom is the ten million dollar jewellery heist takings.
This movie could easily have been very bad. Instead, it is rather good. This is mainly because of the fine pacing of the movie. It is not an endless barrage of action sequences just for the sake of action sequences, but the audience is given time to learn a little about the characters on-screen, and to get to either like or dislike them. And, not least of all, the action sequences are very spectacular indeed.
The transfer was very sharp and very clear. The first half hour of the movie was very dark indeed, and seemed too dark for the type of scenes being depicted, but after this the brightness picked up somewhat and things were fine from there on in. Shadow detail was pretty good. There was no low level noise.
The colours were well presented, though somewhat on the muted side.
No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of short sequences with significant aliasing, but fortunately this never became intrusive since the sequences where this was an issue were all very brief. Film artefacts were very rare.
You cannot change audio selections on the fly, and must do this via the main menu.
Dialogue was hard to understand at times, especially early on in the movie, and had a manufactured, ADR quality about it.
There were no audio sync problems with this disc.
The musical score by Steve Porcaro suited the on-screen action nicely, with a number of false alarms created more-or-less entirely by the music.
The surround channels were aggressively used during the action sequences, and even had some use during non-action sequences. Effects are nicely placed throughout the soundfield, and split surrounds are frequently utilized.
The .1 channel was heavily used by the action sequences and was very nicely integrated into the overall mix, adding punch where punch was necessary.
The video quality is generally very good except for the very dark early scenes.
The audio quality is reasonably good except for some hard-to-hear dialogue.
The extras are non-existent.
| Video |   |
| Audio | |
| Extras | nil |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
© Michael Demtschyna
12th July 1999
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| 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 | Denon AVD-2000 Dolby Digital AddOn Decoder, used as a standalone processor. 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 |