Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	79:29
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Arlene Sanford
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	Dave Sheridan Kevin P. Farley Cameron Richardson Enrico Colantoni Dolly Parton Randy Quaid Orson Bean Joanie Laurer Kevin Pollak Tracy Morgan
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	?	Music	Randy Edelman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish Icelandic Hebrew Greek Bulgarian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Frank McKlusky, C.I. is the story of an absurdly safety-conscious claims investigator (Dave Sheridan) who does everything by the book, and spends all "field operations" sitting in the van while his partner, Jimmy (Kevin P. Farley, brother of the late Chris Farley), goes and does the actual investigating. Frank's family has a long history of producing very bad daredevil/stuntman acts, but this heritage comes to an end when his father (Randy Quaid) is put in a coma after a motorbike accident. Hence Frank's obsession with safety due to his overprotective mother (Dolly Parton, looking the same as she did twenty years ago!), who refuses to let anyone else in her family suffer the fate of her husband.

    All this changes, though, when Jimmy dies under suspicious circumstances, while he and Frank are investigating a case. No one believes it was murder except Frank, so he takes it upon himself to get rid of his stack-hat and go out there and finish the case, with the help of his new assistant Sharon (Cameron Richardson). Will he be able to get to the bottom of the case before he himself is murdered? More importantly, will the viewer be able to stay awake long enough to find out?

    You'll notice that I used the word "story" in the first sentence of this synopsis, but to be accurate there really isn't any story here that I could find. There are a number of set-piece skits strung together with the most tenuous of threads, which wouldn't be too bad if any of the comedy was actually the slightest bit funny. However when the funniest part of a movie is a well-trained dog wearing a bike helmet, and the subtitles for the hearing impaired include descriptions like "Farting" and "Toilet gurgling", you know you're in for a rough ride. I really do try hard to find some redeeming factor in all the movies I watch, but alas there was none to be found in this 79 minute travesty. In fact, despite its very short run time it felt to me more like a 2-hour movie, and I just couldn't wait for it to finish.

    The actors fall into the categories of "who's he/she?" and "boy, I haven't seen him/her for years". Randy Quaid is probably the only exception, but he gets all of about three minutes in the film. Other films that the cast have taken part in include gems like Bubble Boy, Corky Romano and A College Sex Comedy, which are probably high points in their careers compared to this effort. Dave Sheridan does a complete Jim Carrey impersonation throughout the film (a poor one at that), and even if you're a fan of Carrey's worst work this will still grate like fingernails down a blackboard.

    With childlike humour, but too many adult concepts and bad language to make it suitable for children, I can't really see this movie appealing to any audience. Do yourself a favour and stay well away from this one.

Video

    If the old adage of bad movies getting good transfers were to hold true then this would be the reference quality transfer to end all reference quality transfers. This isn't the case, but we are given a decent quality video transfer, which is the least you'd expect from such a recent film.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. As best as I could find out, this is the original aspect ratio of the film.

    Sharpness throughout is more than adequate, except for the occasional scenes where there was quite a lot of grain visible (21:54, 33:24, and 45:35 being just three examples). The majority of the movie takes place during the daytime or in well-lit interiors, but the occasional night-time scene or dark interior exhibited no low-level noise in the blacks. Shadow detail was also good.

    This wasn't a particularly colourful film, but what colour there was showed no signs of bleeding or chroma noise. I did, however, get the feeling that the colours were all a little muted, and they lacked vibrancy or richness. Overall, this category would again come under the "more than adequate" heading.

    I didn't notice any MPEG compression artefacts, and you wouldn't expect to with such a short feature and no extras on the disc. Thankfully there was no obvious aliasing or edge enhancement. I also didn't notice any film artefacts.

    There are ten subtitle streams on this DVD, and I sampled both the English and English for the Hearing-Impaired. The first was spot-on with the dialogue, and the second was equally as good, with the added bonus of getting all the "comic" sound effects described in graphic detail.

    This is a single layered disc, and hence we have no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio transfer is a bit ho-hum, and with the exception of a few scenes could be mistaken for a stereo track.

    There is just the one audio track on this DVD; English Dolby Digital 5.1.

    Dialogue was very clear, with no noticeable ADR sync problems.

    The musical score by Randy Edelman was almost completely forgettable, and in fact I've completely forgotten it already. It reminded me of a lot of TV movie music; if it wasn't there you'd notice its absence, but you don't really notice its presence.

    The surrounds kicked in occasionally, such as during the horse race at 48:33, but this was the exception rather than the rule. This is a very front-heavy track, and the surrounds really aren't utilised.

    Like the surrounds, we do on occasions hear from the subwoofer, but mostly to add bass to the music (37:22 and 13:42). There's also an explosion at 55:22 that I suspect was strategically placed to wake up the audience.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menus are static, 16x9 enhanced, and silent.

    No extras are present.

    As far as I could tell, the two versions of this disc are identical. If you really must get any version at all, then I'd see no reason to import it.

    I don't know how else to describe this movie except to say that it's bad.

    Unlike the film, the video is actually quite good.

    The audio transfer, although not bad, does not effectively make use of the 5.1 format.

    There are no extras to be found.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall