Desert Saints (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Dolby Digital Trailer Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	84:45 (Case: 95)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Richard Greenberg
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Brent Roam Shawn Woods Christopher Bersh Kiefer Sutherland Rachel Ticotin Beth Grant Zach Chapman Jamey Sheridan Leslie Stefanson Melora Walters Buddy Quaid Keith Diamond Bill Sage
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$39.95	Music	Richard Marvin Stan Ridgway

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (320Kb/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 for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Desert Saints is a solid B-movie thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland (made just before he hit it big with 24) as Arthur Banks, a killer for hire and Melora Walters as Bennie, a girl he hooks up with. The film has an interesting premise as it is focussed on the bad guy as the main character and most of the characters seem to have little in the way of redeeming features. Despite this, by the end of the film, I found myself cheering for Arthur.

    The story involves Arthur being hired for a hit and deciding to use his standard MO - finding a female accomplice whom he can control and then killing her once the job is done. He finds Bennie trying to hitch a ride at a remote desert petrol station and offers her a lift. I won't give away the rest of the story, but in many ways he gets more than he expected.

    The film was directed by Rich Greenberg, an experienced assistant director, who gets his first shot at being the man in charge. It is not a bad effort, however, I believe the problems that keep this movie in the average category have more to do with the script than the directing, which he was also involved with as a co-writer with Wally Nichols. For an action/thriller, it seems to be full of scenes involving people having coffee or meals and talking. The dialogue is nothing to get excited about, and there is very little humour or personality in the script.

    On the acting front, Kiefer Sutherland is quite good and believable in his role. I found Melora Walters hard to understand for much of the movie and a little unbelievable in her character. For those wondering where they may have seen her before she was in both Magnolia and Boogie Nights.

    Visually, the film is quite interesting with some innovative approaches to cutting from scene to scene and a mixture of night scenes, bright desert scenes and some brightly lit scenes in a hotel.

    Overall, this film is not a bad night in - it is entertaining and provides a number of good twists at the end.

Video

    The video quality is reasonable but not what you would expect from such a recent film.

    The feature is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced, which is quite close to the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    The picture was generally clear, however there was some grain throughout. Shadow detail was quite good, with the night scenes being quite easy to follow. There was no low level noise.

    The colour seemed a bit washed out, with no striking colours. This may have been an artistic choice by the director due to the subject matter and desert setting.

    The feature included many small artefacts, both positive and negative which were sometimes slightly distracting. I also noticed some minor edge enhancement. I did not notice any MPEG artefacts.

    There are one set of English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles on this disc. They were clear and easy to read and were helpfully shown justified to the side of the screen where the character who was speaking was located. This would make it easier to tell who was speaking if you were hearing impaired. Generally they matched the dialogue onscreen, however, sometimes they were summarised and I did notice one line which was missed altogether.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is quite good.

    This DVD contains one audio option, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 320 Kb/s.    

    Dialogue was at all times clear and easy to understand. There were no problems with audio sync.    

    The score of this film by Richard Marvin was very good and added significantly to the atmosphere of the film. It included some cool Spanish guitar music and some other fine elements. There were some well used songs as well. Ones I especially noticed were A Good Woman is Hard to Find by Morphine which plays over the opening titles and 30 Days by the composer and some other musicians which plays over the end credits.

    The surround speakers were used to add effects from time to time and, although not immersive, these added nicely to the feel of the film.  

    The subwoofer was used during music and louder scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu was static and had no sound, and allowed for scene selection. It was 16x9 enhanced.

Theatrical Trailer (1:48) 

    This is a good trailer which would pique people's interest in seeing the film. It is quite visually stylish, more so than the film itself.

    There is also something which could be loosely termed an Easter egg. If you navigate down on the menu past the subtitle selection you highlight a Village Roadshow icon, which leads you to some DVD credits.

    The Region 4 version of this disc (when compared to the Region 1 release) misses out on;

• Pan & Scan Presentation
• Subtitles in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean & Thai

The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Widescreen Presentation
• Dolby Digital 5.1 (Region 1 has only 2.0) 

    Based upon the above, the Region 4 disc is definitely the pick unless you like pan and scan.

    This movie is a solid B-grade thriller.

    The video quality is not as good as it should be for a film of this vintage.

    The audio quality is quite good, especially the musical soundtrack.

    The only extra is a trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall