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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
President's Man, The: Ground Zero (2000)

President's Man, The: Ground Zero (2000)

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Released 28-Sep-2004

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2000
Running Time 86:38 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper No/No Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Eric Norris
Michael Preece
Studio
Distributor

Imagine Entertainment
Starring Chuck Norris
Jennifer Tung
Robert Urich
Judson Mills
Dylan Neal
Case Click
RPI ? Music Christopher Stone


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Pan & Scan English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles None Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    The beauty of Chuck Norris movies is that they are hit or miss affairs. In this case, it’s an unfortunate miss.

    Joshua McCord (Chuck Norris) is the head of a small team of specialists whose sole purpose is to implement the US President's orders in times of crisis. Together with his daughter Que (Jennifer Tung), and operations specialist Deke Slater (Dylan Neal), the trio are always able to pull off jobs that the military and "official" law enforcement agencies cannot. Their success is due in part to their small number and also due to the fact that their existence is only known about by the president himself, giving them the element of surprise. They also pack some heavy firepower and enough special gadgets to make 007's Q jealous. I wonder if Jennifer Tung's screen name was a subtle play on this fact.

    We open with guns blazing, as Saddam's guards are hunting down Deke. This sequence reminded me of the old TV show The A-Team. In that show, just as in this one, jeeps loaded with heavy firepower in the form of mounted semi-automatic machine guns cannot put a single bullet into whomever they are chasing. I mean, come on - couldn’t he even get a little flesh wound rather than simply expending several thousand rounds of ammunition to no avail?

    The story plays out strikingly similarly to what is happening in the world today. The US is being terrorised by groups of Islamic terrorists and the President calls Joshua to assemble his team and eliminate the threat. All the while the military are having their meetings and want to unleash their arsenal on the targets. The bad guys manage to smuggle a nuclear bomb into the country and now Joshua and the gang have to work overtime to save the day.

    If you want to see a group of terrorists smuggle a nuclear weapon into the USA and try and detonate it then I would strongly suggest you hire True Lies instead.

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Transfer Quality

Video

     The transfer is presented in a pan & scan aspect ratio of 1.33:1. As far as I can tell this appears to have been taken from a 1.78:1 source.

    The transfer exhibited a soft image reminiscent in appearance of its videotape source. Shadow detail is a problem with most scenes exhibiting too much grain in the shadows or insufficient clarity to see the darker objects without straining. One notable exception was at 12:54 where the night sky was deep and black. There is low-level noise throughout the feature.

    The colours were muted and drab, no doubt as a result of the source material. The pyrotechnic display at 2:03 was colourful but still limited in its visual appeal.

    The most notable artefact was edge enhancement. At 42:56 there was an excessive amount of enhancement in the scene. From 46:24 to 46:29 it was there to a lesser extent. Aliasing is common but mild when it does occur. Film artefacts are very common as well and the file footage used at around the 33 minute mark was of very poor quality in this regard. The worst point was at 33:45.

    This disc is a single sided single layered disc, so therefore there is no layer change.

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

Audio

     The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times and audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer.

    The musical score was about as exciting as the main feature and provided a dull background to the action. The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    The surround-encoded audio channels were mildly used for music ambience and special effects. For the majority of the time they were quiet with the backing music being almost inaudible. Engaging Pro-Logic II decoding did provide some mild directional effects but don’t expect too much in this area, either.

    The subwoofer was not used during this feature.

Extras

     There are no extras present on this disc.

Menu

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

    The Region 2 version of this disc misses out on;     I have been unable to find a Region 1 version of this movie on DVD. The only title I could find was a German Region 2 version which I have referred to above. This version only contains an English Dolby Digital 2.0 track which is exactly what we also get.

Summary

    Fans of Chuck Norris will not see him acting a great deal in this movie. All of the operations and serious fighting are left to Dylan Neal. There is little here to keep you interested and the plot is something that was done better in other movies.

    The video quality was essentially the same as VHS.

    The audio also leaves a lot to be desired.

    There are no extras.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Peter Mellor (read my bio)
Saturday, January 18, 2003
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-533K, using Component output
DisplayLoewe Aconda 9381ZW. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationDenon AVR-2802 Dolby EX/DTS ES Discrete
SpeakersWhatmough Audiolabs Magnum M30 (Mains); M05 (Centre); M10 (Rears); Magnat Vector Needle Sub25A Active SubWoofer

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