Bad Company (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-In Bad Company: An Inside Look
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	111:51 (Case: 116)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (51:52)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Joel Schumacher
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Anthony Hopkins Chris Rock Gabriel Macht
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$36.95	Music	Trevor Rabin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Dutch Russian Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Icelandic Estonian Greek	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    So why the poor performance? Some would suggest that it was because it was simply a bad film, but while it is certainly formulaic and rather clichéd, the majority of films in the same genre are just as much to blame. To put it simply, Bad Company is not that bad. It is entertaining, looks gorgeous, stars two likeable actors, and actually does have a decent story buried beneath the lacklustre script. There have certainly been films which have succeeded on far less.

    The plot is one of international espionage. A nuclear bomb that fits in a suitcase is up for sale on the black market, and CIA agent Kevin Pope (Chris Rock) has positioned himself to be a buyer. The problem for the CIA, and his boss Oakes (Anthony Hopkins), is that shortly after organising a time for the deal, Kevin is assassinated. This leaves the CIA one choice - track down Kevin's long lost twin brother, Jake Hayes (Chris Rock), and have him pose as Kevin until the deal goes down. There's only one small hitch in that plan - Kevin and Jake may well have been twins, but they are two people who would have had nothing in common. Jake is a street hustler, he's broke, and his girlfriend just left him. Now he has just nine days to transform himself into a suited, classical-music listening, Harvard-educated super-suave spy. If he fails, millions of lives may be lost.

    One of the most impressive aspects of Bad Company is the way in which Chris Rock controls his often over-the-top antics. I have always thought of Chris Rock as a nuclear reaction - when carefully controlled, he can be used to excellent effect (as shown in the latter Kevin Smith movies), but when left to his own devices, he can become simply too much (the abominable Down To Earth). This movie is a good example of the first category, where his natural humour is used to good effect, but he never becomes overbearing. The performance side of the movie is, however, a let-down, with most of the leading cast putting in paint-by-numbers performances. Anthony Hopkins in particular just mumbles his way through most of the lines, rarely if ever investing them with emotion (and although that mostly suits his character, it would be nice to see him feel something).

    Bad Company is probably doomed to the fate of the mediocre formula film - being forgotten in a few years - but for fans of spy movies, it is worth checking out, and in that regard, the rental-only nature of this overlooked title will be of benefit.

Video

    Presented at the original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1, this transfer is 16x9 enhanced.

    The image presented in this transfer is reasonably sharp, displaying a good amount of fine detail. Grain is a constant, although usually low, presence and keeps the transfer from ever being extremely sharp. There are only a very few occasions where the grain becomes particularly noticeable, such as in the opening credits from 0:28 to 0:37, and they are infrequent enough to not become a problem. Shadow detail is excellent, bringing life to any darkly lit scene, and helping to make the night scenes look very good indeed. There is no low level noise present in this transfer.

    Colours are very good, and are used at times throughout the film to interesting effect. The scenes in the US, and those involving the CIA in particular, tend toward the monochromatic, while the scenes set in Prague are rich and vibrant in colour.

    First the good news for artefacts: there are no film artefacts, nor compression artefacts at all. In fact, this transfer only suffers from one problem, and that is aliasing. There are many, many instances of minor aliasing, such as on the shoulder at 15:47, or the toothpick in Anthony Hopkins mouth from 34:18 to 34:20, and a number of instances of severe aliasing, such as on the grille at 30:25. The aliasing can be quite distracting at times, and as such detracts from the overall enjoyment of the movie.

    The subtitles are word-for-word accurate, are easy to read, and are well paced.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change taking place at 51:52. It is reasonably well placed, not interrupting any dialogue, and on a scene change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three audio tracks present on this disc, being the original English dialogue in both Dolby Digital 5.1 (at 448 Kbps), and DTS 5.1 (half bit-rate), and a Russian dub in Dolby Digital 5.1 (at 384 Kbps).

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, and given the number of different accents (and Chris Rock's usual habit of spouting lines faster than a race-caller) that is no mean feat. Audio sync is never a problem, being spot-on throughout.

    The score is attributed to Trevor Rabin, and while a little clichéd and typical genre fare, it is still quite good, and well suited to the film. It may not win any awards, but it helps set the mood effectively, and is generally bold and bright as one would expect for an action-comedy. There are also a number of different contemporary pieces, ranging from rap/R&B to rock. They generally suit the scenes, and do not stand out too much.

    The surround channel use is slightly disappointing. While it is good enough, it could have been so much better. The surrounds get a decent amount of use during the numerous gun-battles in the film, but generally fall silent in between, barely even carrying the score, and almost never any ambient noise.

    The subwoofer on the other hand gets a decent workout, both from the score, and from the effects noises. Gunfire has a decent kick from the subwoofer, while most sound effects that would normally produce low frequencies receive ample backing.

    The Dolby Digital and DTS tracks are so close in quality as to be indistinguishable. This probably has something to do with it being a half bit-rate DTS track and a high bit-rate Dolby Digital track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

In Bad Company - An Inside Look (12:00)

• "Sneak Peak" trailers
• French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack

• Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack

    The video quality is good, but a large amount of aliasing keeps it from being excellent. The aliasing gets bad enough to be quite distracting.

    The audio quality is also good, but there is a decided lack of surround utilisation, with the spaces between the action scenes usually filled with silence.

    The single extra is a waste of space, and would have been better left off.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall