Burglar (1987)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1987
Running Time	97:51
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Hugh Wilson
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Whoopi Goldberg Bob Goldthwait G.W. Bailey Lesley Ann Warren James Handy Anne De Salvo John Goodman Elizabeth Ruscio Vyto Ruginis Larry Mintz Raye Birk Eric Poppick Scott Lincoln
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$14.95	Music	Sylvester Levay

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/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 English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes, frequent
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Bernie (Whoopi Goldberg) is a burglar. Or, at least, she was. She has been to prison, and now she'd like to be going straight. Unfortunately, she's being blackmailed by a retired cop called Ray (G.W. Bailey). So she's trying to steal enough to get him off her back. She's hampered by her morals, which only let her steal from people who deserve being burgled.

    She is put onto a good "job" by a fence. She goes to see Cynthia Sheldrake (Lesley Ann Warren), who is a dentist. Cynthia wants Bernie to break into her ex-husband's apartment and steal some jewellery that he took from her. Bernie does so, but gets stuck in the apartment, and something really bad happens. Now she's in real trouble...

    This is not a particularly original story, nor is it brilliantly scripted or acted. It is fairly entertaining, and the obligatory comic relief, in the form of the police detectives (Anne DeSalvo and John Goodman), and the best friend (Bobcat Goldthwait, credited as Bob Goldthwait), is reasonably funny. Good for watching when you're not feeling too critical.

Video

    This transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's close to the original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio.

    The image is quite soft and grainy. Shadow detail is not too good, which is a shame, because some important scenes take place in darkness. The softness is not helped by the fact that more than a few of the outdoor shots were filmed in mist or fog (the film is set in San Francisco). There's a little bit of low level noise occasionally.

    Colour is rendered rather well, and there are occasional splashes of bright colour to emphasise this. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are lots of film artefacts, but they are small and not bothersome.

    There's some minor aliasing, but there's no significant moiré. There's some minor background shimmer, but no other MPEG artefacts.

    There are subtitles, but only in English — we get both regular subtitles and subtitles for the Hearing Impaired. I watched the latter, and they are fairly accurate, easy to read, but sometimes run a bit behind the dialogue.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered. Given the length of the film, and the lack of large extras, the single layer seems adequate.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The soundtrack is only provided in English, so that's what I listened to. It is Dolby Digital 2.0, surround encoded, at 192 kbps.

    The dialogue is rather too quiet (I had to boost the volume over 5dB to hear it properly). There are moments of minor distortion, such as at 12:16 and 34:43. There are no obvious audio sync problems.

    The score comes from Sylvester Kevay, but there are plenty of songs, produced by Bernard Edwards. The songs seem intended to give this film the feel of Beverly Hills Cop, but it doesn't really work.

    Although the soundtrack is surround-encoded, I noticed nothing of any significance from the surrounds. The subwoofer isn't used by this soundtrack.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras on this disc.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent — a very familiar design if you've seen more than one of Warners' discount discs.

    The Region 1 disc, released years ago, is even more of a discount disc than this one. It's a pan-n-scan effort — the classic "videotape in DVD form" offering.

    Even though the R4 disc offers no extras, and a fairly shoddy transfer, it is still the better of the two because it is in close to the original aspect ratio. Definitely the R4 if you want this movie.

    A B movie given a fairly poor transfer to DVD.

    The video quality is adequate.

    The audio quality is adequate.

    The extras are non-existent.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall