The Doctor (1991)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Menu Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	117:56
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (75:32)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Randa Haines
Studio Distributor	Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.	Starring	William Hurt Christine Lahti Elizabeth Perkins Mandy Patinkin Adama Arkin
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michael Convertino

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.75:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French Spanish Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    When successful heart surgeon Jack McKee (William Hurt) discovers that a tickle in his throat is a cancerous growth, he ceases to become a doctor and suddenly becomes a patient. On the other side of the diagnostic lens, Jack finds himself treated like a number, with dispassion and objectivity – the very way he grooms his own interns to treat their patients. “Get in, get it done, get out,” he tells them. “The more detached you are, the better your ability to diagnose.” But as the fear that he may be dying begins to get the better of him, he finds himself befriending a fellow cancer patient, June (Elizabeth Perkins), who has a brain tumour, while at the same time pushing his wife away.

    The Doctor is a surprisingly good slow burning drama based on the novel A Taste Of My Own Medicine by Ed Rosenbaum, M.D. It delves into the characters while avoiding attempts at sentimentality. Sure, this film is ultimately an emotional rather than an intellectual one, and is best viewed in that light. But for a movie which predates the medical drama series E.R., which has now set the benchmark for such shows, it is a surprisingly insightful piece of work.

    This movie also features some very fine performances – the understated Hurt is perfect as the arrogant doctor who struggles with his fear at becoming a patient. Likewise, Christine Lahti, who plays his wife Anne, is very good. But Perkins is definitely the show stealer as June, the woman who has found a new liberation in the knowledge that she is going to die.

    While not quite Academy Award material, The Doctor is nevertheless a fine piece of film-making and a good show to spend a rainy afternoon with.

Video

    Presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is very close to the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    There are two major faults with this transfer. Firstly, the colour is a little bit off. Flesh tones are too red, and when you try to reduce the saturation on your monitor, the colour goes too green. Secondly, there is an inordinate amount of low-level noise in the background which is very distracting at times, particularly as it mars the glorious sunset desert vistas which float full of digital blocks.

    Other than that, the picture is perhaps a little too soft and the shadow detail is far from exceptional, but these were minor faults by comparison to the above, and consequently not very distracting. The picture is still reasonably well defined and there is no problem discerning what is going on.

    I did not spot anything much else in the way of film-to-video transfer faults, but I did notice a bit of dirt – but given the age of the film, this is hardly surprising. It was not overbearing, but I was aware of it.

    Subtitles are available in English, English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Spanish, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish. They are white with a black border, and clear and easy to read.

    The dual layer pause it is at 75:32. It occurs during a scene change and is not terribly noticeable.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three soundtracks available – the original English track remastered into 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround, and accompanying French and Spanish tracks also in 5.1 Dolby Digital. The foreign language tracks were fairly clear although thinner than the English track.

    As for the English track, the dialogue is always clear and easy to understand, which is important given that this show is entirely dialogue driven. I noticed no audio sync problems.

    The score by Michael Convertino has a decent range and activated the surrounds fairly well. However, the surrounds were not heavily utilised otherwise except for some faint ambient noise. The sound field is still predominantly front-driven, with a few nice directional cues across the front of the field, but nothing from the rear.

    The subwoofer did not get any attention and remained inactive.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menus

    All menus are presented in 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The main menu has the movie theme playing in 2.0 Dolby Stereo.

    The R1 version of this disc has not yet been released, however from pre-release sources it would seem that there are no substantive differences between the R1 and R4 versions.

    The Doctor is a good drama about the importance of remaining human in the medical field and not becoming a detached surgeon.

    The video is marred by excessive low-level noise.

    The sound is good, but not all it could be.

    The extras were non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall