Next of Kin (1989) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	108:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	1,4	Directed By	John Irvin
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Patrick Swayze Liam Neeson Adam Baldwin Helen Hunt Bill Paxton Ben Stiller Andreas Katsulas
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Jack Nitzsche

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    In any case, Truman's family get tired of waiting for the police to find the killer and so take matters into their own hands. Truman's other brother, Briar (Liam Neeson), goes to Chicago to provide justice in the good old-fashioned hillbilly way. Needless to say, things don't go smoothly and the movie climaxes with a ridiculous battle between the hillbillies and the gangsters, complete with crossbows.

    The only point of interest that I could find with this movie was to recognise the number of fairly big-name actors that appear in this movie. Truman's wife Jessie is played by Helen Hunt, in a somewhat useless role (what does a violinist have to do with anything in this movie?!). Ben Stiller plays the son of the gangster boss, and it was surprising to see him in a non-comedic role.

    Only die-hard Patrick Swayze fans would enjoy this movie.

Video

    The movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (probably Full Frame rather than Pan&Scan) and is not 16x9 enhanced. I can't seem to find any information about the original aspect ratio, but assume that it would be 1.85:1. It is particularly disappointing to see that, after inserting the DVD, a notice is displayed stating that the film has been formatted to fit your TV screen. Well, if you have a 16x9 TV it certainly does not fit your TV screen!

    The sharpness level varies somewhat throughout the movie, with the last 2 minutes being particularly blurry. The print is quite soft and grainy at times. The movie has quite a number of dark scenes, and black level is not too bad, although sometimes things do get lost in the dark with mediocre shadow detail. There does not appear to be all that much low level noise which is a bonus.

    Colours are quite bad with this transfer. Skin-tones are far too over-saturated with Swayze (and others) sometimes looking a distinct shade of red.

    Edge enhancement pops up every now and then (eg. a distinct halo can be seen around Swayze as he stands against the window at 3:50). Aliasing also appears, particularly around buildings and railway lines. I initially reviewed the disc using the interlaced settings on my DVD player and TV. I switched to the progressive settings, and only noticed a minimal improvement in clarity. Aliasing appeared to be reduced, but all other issues remained.

    No subtitles are provided with this disc.

    This is not an RSDL-formatted disc, and 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 is always clear and easy to understand. There were some issues with audio synchronisation, but these are due to some rather bad ADR work. One particular example at 6:50 had Swayze shouting words but his mouth was clearly not moving at all.

    The music score by Jack Nitzsche is not bad, with some old-fashioned country fiddle tunes that suited the hillbilly nature of the characters. The opening credits surprised with the score emanating quite nicely from the surrounds.

    Surround activity during the movie is erratic, with some instances of activity and others with no activity at all. A number of instances are quite good, such as the music in the opening credits and the truck going by at 14:58. However, there are times when the surround activity does not match the on-screen action. One example is at 30:46 where an arrow is fired on-screen but the sound emanates from the surrounds. Due to the lack of activity during other parts of the movie, these instances of activity do draw attention to themselves.

    The subwoofer was not called into action all that much during the movie.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The video quality is disappointing and mediocre at best.

    The audio quality is average.

    No extras are provided.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall