Uncommon Valor (1983)

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General		Extras
Category	War	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1983
Running Time	100:31
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ted Kotcheff
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Gene Hackman Patrick Swayze Tim Thomerson Fred Ward
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$24.95	Music	James Horner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish German Greek English Spanish French Hebrew Croatian Icelandic Italian Hungarian Dutch Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovenian Finnish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Hot off the success of Stallone's First Blood, director Ted Kotcheff chose another action movie with ties to the Vietnam War as his next vehicle. Uncommon Valor is a moderately budgeted action rescue film that owes a great deal of debt to The Dirty Dozen. A group of ex-military soldiers led by a retired Colonel (Gene Hackman) go back to Vietnam circa 1983 in an attempt to rescue American POWs still held captive since 1975. The difference is that one of those POWs is Hackman's son. Needless to say, all doesn't go to plan and thus follows a pretty entertaining early 80s action cheese fest.

    The performances are fairly entertaining, with Hackman a standout as usual. It is interesting to see the work of a young Patrick Swayze, who is slightly wooden as `the rookie', but he delivers his lines (which are somewhat corny) with enthusiasm. The film's premise is interesting, but it needed a more experienced director to elevate the material above B level. A moderate success in its day, it inspired countless rip-offs including the Chuck Norris Missing In Action films. All-in-all, Uncommon Valor is a good Saturday night boy's own adventure.

Video

    Uncommon Valor is presented in an aspect ratio of 1:78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness levels are reasonable for a film of this vintage, with good shadow detail. There is a certain amount of grain during the night time sequences, but nothing top distracting.

    Colours are natural and well suited to the subject matter, especially the jungle scenes.

    There are minor film artefacts throughout the transfer, but these are few and acceptable.

    Overall, Paramount have provided a very decent transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

   Paramount have provided a very enjoyable remastered soundtrack for this film.

    The disc has a remastered English Dolby Digital 5.1 track and 2.0 surround tracks in French, German, Dutch and Spanish. The 5.1 track is reviewed here.

    Dialogue is always clear with little to no audio sync problems.

    The score by James Horner is typical of the genre and not at all intrusive.

    Surround channel usage is remarkably strong for a 20 year old film. The directional soundfield is quite vivid, especially during the many action scenes.

    The subwoofer amply supports the other channels.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Theatrical Trailer

    All versions of this DVD are equally specified, so the PAL transfer on the R4 disc is the preferred version.

    Uncommon Valor is an engaging B level action picture from those magnificently politically incorrect early 80s. A decent plot is accompanied by a strong lead performance from Gene Hackman. The film is presented on a bare bones disc with a good transfer and a great remastered 5.1 audio track.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall