Fair Game (1995)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	86:42
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Andrew Sipes
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	William Baldwin Cindy Crawford Steven Berkoff Christopher McDonald
Case	Snapper
RPI	$24.95	Music	Mark Mancina

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, at start of credits

    Meanwhile, Max Kilpatrick (William Baldwin) a Miami cop and our hero for this romp, is starting to get a taste of what type of day he is in for, which by the way, is not looking so good. Some of the problems he is going to have to deal with include; an ex-girlfriend (Salma Hayek), homelessness, a bad credit line, a very caring boss (Christopher McDonald) and a divorce lawyer with a small cut on her arm.

    Through one of life's little oddities, Max is on his way to see Kate to clear up some paperwork and is able to lend a hand in thwarting the second assassination attempt on her life. Max is starting to wonder what Kate has done to deserve all this attention. He enlists the help of his work colleagues to try and help protect Kate while they try to work out who is responsible and why. However, our bad guys don't give up easily, and the next action sequence includes thermal cameras, pizza, peeing, nudity, showers and a fair amount of shooting.

    There are many more great action sequences throughout the movie which include; car chases, rockets, trains, skin tight black outfits, knives (ouch, that's got to hurt), boats and explosions. Add a pretty solid story line, Cindy Crawford's remarkably good acting performance in this, her debut movie, and you've got the makings of a really enjoyable action/chase movie.

Video

    The transfer is extremely clear and sharp at all times, with no low level noise present. The shadow detail is also very good, but a couple of scenes did seem to be just a tad on the dark side.

    The colours are well-saturated and natural looking, although not as lush or vibrant as some of the more recent films I have seen. I doubt that this is a transfer problem as the colouring is just too consistent throughout the film.

    There are some instances of excessive edge enhancement, mostly near the start of the movie. These occurrences are usually mild, with only a couple standing out enough to be distracting. On a similar note, the opening scene where Kate is running along the beach has what you would believe to be some seriously excessive edge enhancement, but in fact it is a deliberate cinematic choice. There is also some grain present in many of the indoor scenes, which affects the background.

    I wish I could say that aliasing was not a problem with this transfer, but unfortunately it is. It strikes repeatedly and regularly, and although it is not chronic, it is certainly bad enough to be distracting. Scenes that contain a panning shot are almost always affected. Venetian blinds and chrome on cars are the worst offenders. Thankfully, there is no stadium seating in this movie! Out of curiosity, I grabbed a VHS copy of this film from my local video library and did a selective A-B comparison. A lot of the aliasing is even present on the VHS tape, so I guess there is only so much you can do to reduce it.

    Film artefacts are yet another area where this transfer lets us down somewhat, as there are a large number of small to medium-sized film artefacts during the opening sequences, which are distracting at times. Thankfully, the frequency of these film artefacts dramatically drops off after the first 15 minutes, but fear not, there is still a generous sprinkling throughout the rest of the movie.

    One other thing that struck me as odd or less than perfect is the jaggedness that occurs around peoples' shoulders in many scenes. Good examples of this can be found at 3:06, 3:19, 3:37, 3:52, 8:46, 8:52, 8:56, 9:02 and finally 9:27. I found this rather annoying.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are three audio tracks on this DVD; English 384Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1, French 384Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1 and an Italian 384Kb/s Dolby Digital 5.1. The default is the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and is the one I listened to.

    The overall sound mix tended to be centre-heavy, with only light surround speaker use. There is always some low level background noise coming from the surround speakers, but it is usually too low in comparison with the front soundstage. Consequently, the sound becomes front-heavy. The surround speakers are most audible during low action sequences with music underscoring.

    During the loud explosion at 18:12, I heard some distortion. I re-listened to this section again at a much lower level to confirm that it wasn't my amplifier that was not handling the dynamic range of this explosion with my head near the front right speaker. There is definitely some distortion present. This distortion is also present on the VHS version, so I can only conclude that it is in the original soundtrack mix.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand, and no audio sync problems were noticed with this transfer. There is however, one very obvious dialogue replacement that occurs at 63:40.

    The musical score is by Mark Mancina. It suits the movie well, as it adds to or enhances the on-screen action.

    The subwoofer was well used, adding extra punch to the soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

• Production Notes
• Cast & Crew Biographies

• Widescreen presentation
• English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack

    The video transfer is quite acceptable, with nothing drastically wrong with it. Aliasing and film artefacts are the worst offenders.

    The sound quality is good, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is disappointing. It sounds more like a Dolby Surround soundtrack than a Dolby Digital one, as it is front and centre heavy.

    There are absolutely no extras, not even biographies.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall