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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.
Enough: Collector's Edition (2002)

Enough: Collector's Edition (2002)

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Released 27-May-2003

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Drama Main Menu Introduction
Menu Animation & Audio
Dolby Digital Trailer-City
Audio Commentary-director and writer
Audio Commentary-producers
Deleted Scenes-3 +/- commentary
Featurette-Max on the Set: Enough
Featurette-A Clear Message; Enough Is Enough; Krav Maga: Contact Combat
Music Video-Alive-Jennifer Lopez
Filmographies-Cast & Crew
Theatrical Trailer
Trailer-Men in Black II; Spider-Man; Trapped; Maid In Manhattan
Rating Rated MA
Year Of Production 2002
Running Time 110:32
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (73:21) Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4,5 Directed By Michael Apted
Studio
Distributor

Sony Pictures Home Entertain
Starring Jennifer Lopez
Billy Campbell
Juliette Lewis
Tessa Allen
Dan Futterman
Fred Ward
Bill Cobbs
Bruce A Young
Noah Wyle
Case ?
RPI $36.95 Music David Arnold


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
Dutch
Arabic
Bulgarian
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Finnish
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Icelandic
Norwegian
Polish
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovenian
Swedish
Turkish
English for the Hearing Impaired
English Audio Commentary
Dutch Audio Commentary
English Audio Commentary
Dutch Audio Commentary
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

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

Plot Synopsis

    This time I have no excuses. When I reviewed Sleeping With the Enemy I didn't realise what I'd let myself in for; this time I knew. This movie really must be compared with Sleeping With the Enemy, and I think the comparison comes out fairly even, although this one could be accused of being somewhat derivative. I thought it interesting that this one stars Jennifer Lopez, who some have characterised as the "next Julia Roberts" — maybe she'll make a film that's derivative of Pretty Woman next. (No, I don't know what's in the cinema at the moment — why do you ask?)

    Like Sleeping With the Enemy, this is the tale of a woman who marries a man she loves, only to discover his darker side. They rush us through the set-up, devoting only 20 minutes to the meeting, marriage, and the birth of their child. This rush is aided by full screen title cards saying things like "how they met", "to have and to hold", and so forth — apparently these were controversial, but necessary because the audience got lost without them. We get to a point about five years into their marriage before things slow down. Slim (Jennifer Lopez) discovers Mitch (Billy Campbell) is having an affair, and objects — so he hits her. It's interesting how they explore her alternatives; almost like a check-list. She goes to Mitch's mother (that's a bit of a shock), she tries the police, she refuses to consider a shelter...

    Jennifer Lopez's performance is not bad — she does quite a credible job in this role, but it feels rather one-note. I'm not sure that we can completely blame her — the script doesn't give her a lot of options.

    Billy Campbell is impressive. He describes his role as psychopathic, and he is very convincing. He comes across as appealing early, but it's quite interesting to watch the early scenes again — everything is implicit from the beginning. He is able to be threatening without moving. For all that there are comments about him being a TV actor, I think he gives a better performance than Jennifer Lopez.

    Tessa Allen is amazing. She is only four years old, but her performance is absolutely perfect. If for nothing else, it is well worth watching this film to see how good she is. We should keep an eye on this (very) young actress.

    This film is described in a variety of ways, but I place it firmly in the same genre as Sleeping With the Enemy — it is a horror film without the supernatural, and without the decoration of chainsaws. It's quite effective, and may disturb your sleep. I do think that they went too far with the last fifteen minutes, but you have to admit that they did spend the time to build up to it, to justify it, and there is definite cathartic value. It's possible to denigrate this film, but I don't think that's fair — this is a fairly decent film.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, which is the intended ratio. It is 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is clear and sharp throughout — an example of real clarity. Shadow detail is strong. There's no film grain, no low-level noise and no visible edge enhancement.

    Colour has been very carefully manipulated in this film. The opening scenes are brilliant, with vivid colour which is well-rendered. As things progress, the colour fades, eventually reaching a production design that's almost monochrome — the colour is still well-rendered, but there's very little of it to render. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    I watched very closely, and spotted two film artefacts, both tiny and insignificant. Just enough to convince that this really was film, not video.

    There's next to no aliasing, no moire and no MPEG artefacts.

    This is close to being a perfect transfer.

    There are subtitles in a plethora of languages (21, in fact), including English. There are actually four English subtitle tracks, with the soundtrack subtitled and captioned, plus subtitles for both commentaries (a nice touch — the commentary subtitles are also available in Dutch). I only watched the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles — they are in an unusual, fairly attractive font, a little larger than normal; they are well-timed, and rather accurate.

    The disc is single-sided and dual layered, formatted RSDL. The layer change is at 73:21, and is not especially noticeable (although it interrupts the second commentary).

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

Audio

    This disc has five audio tracks. The soundtrack is provided in English, Russian, and Hungarian (interesting choices), and there are two commentaries. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448 kbps.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand. There are no audio sync problems.

    David Arnold's score is superb. This film wouldn't be half as effective without this score. It is interesting that it doesn't start until 15 minutes in — up to that point, the musical background is provided by a variety of songs. The majority of songs are by female artists, a deliberate choice by the filmmakers. Yes, there is a song by the leading lady, but it comes during the closing credits (this is not the kind of movie where a character can burst spontaneously into song).

    The surrounds are used well to heighten our unease. They are particularly good during the training, but they get quite a bit to do during the whole film.

    The subwoofer has plenty to do, giving us ominous rumbles every so often, and supporting parts of the score.

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

Extras

    There are plenty of extras on this disc. There are more than appear at first glance — there's more than one page of special features, and both the featurettes and trailers have sub-menus. You can get to the trailers sub-menu from both the main menu and special features menu — I don't know why they do this.

Menu

    The menu is animated with music, well-themed to the movie. There's an introduction before the main menu.

Commentary — director Michael Apted, writer Nicholas Kazan

    A good commentary that starts at the beginning of the film and continues, pretty much non-stop, all the way to the end. They have a lot to say, and convey it well. They point out techniques they used to enhance the story, where ideas were added or deleted, and why. An excellent example of good commentary style. Recommended.

Commentary — producers Rob Cowan, Irwin Winkler

    Not quite as good a commentary, but only by comparison. They leave quite a few gaps, some of which stretch out to minutes. There is some overlap in content between this commentary and the other commentary and featurettes. They point out various production design choices, such as the colours. They also point out how scary this film is at pointing out how current Western society offers so many ways in which we can be at risk.

Deleted Scenes

    These deleted scenes can be viewed with or without commentary from the director.

Featurette — Max on the Set: Enough (12:13)

    This is the classic extended trailer / EPK piece. Interesting enough to look at, but overlaps with all the other featurettes.

Featurette — A Clear Message (9:02)

    A discussion of the themes of the film, and the decisions they made in how they would present them.

Featurette — Enough is Enough (11:04)

    A discussion of the subject of spouse-beating. They are at pains to point out that they are not trying to suggest that this film offers the only solution.

Featurette — Krav Maga: Contact Combat (7:59)

    An introduction to the combat system called Krav Maga that appears in this film. It's an interesting subject, and a very good choice for this film. You'll see why.

Music Video — Alive — Jennifer Lopez (4:26)

    Well, you had to expect it, didn't you? This is actually a decent music video, splicing together footage from the movie with footage of performance, and a nice simulation of the lady writing the song.

Filmographies

    Simple lists of films (not TV shows) they've made — two pages per person.

Trailers

R4 vs R1

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

    The Region 1 version of this DVD was released in November 2002. It is a decent DVD, and uses the same menu design as this one, but it has a lot fewer extras. It does offer a choice of full-screen or widescreen, but that's its only advantage over the Region 4 disc.

    The Region 4 disc is missing:

    The Region 1 disc is missing:

    Yes, I did get those lists the right way around — the Region 4 disc has a lot more extras. My guess is that Region 1 will be getting a Collector's Edition of this disc sometime soon, and that it will look a lot like our R4 disc.

    The widescreen transfers are similar in quality, with the R1 seeming a tiny bit harsher (possibly due to being NTSC). The full-screen transfer on the R1 disc is pan-and-scan, and looks like it might be a digital blow-up of the widescreen — it is quite distinctly lower resolution, and fairly soft. Horrible!

    Unless you are desperate for a somewhat poorer quality full-screen version, or French sound, I think you'd be mad to choose the Region 1 over the Region 4.

Summary

    Enough is a horror film in a disturbingly real situation, given a brilliant presentation on DVD.

    The video quality is top-notch.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    The extras are comprehensive.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Tony Rogers (bio-degrading: making a fool of oneself in a bio...)
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Review Equipment
DVDPioneer DV-S733A, using Component output
DisplaySony VPH-G70 CRT Projector, QuadScan Elite scaler (Tripler), ScreenTechnics 110. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationDenon AVC-A1SE
SpeakersFront Left, Centre, Right: Krix Euphonix; Rears: Krix KDX-M; Subwoofer: Krix Seismix 5

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