Code of Silence (1985)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1985
Running Time	96:31
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Andrew Davis
Studio Distributor	MGM	Starring	Chuck Norris Henry Silva Bert Remsen Mike Genovese Nathan Davis Ralph Foody Allen Hamilton Ron Henriquez Joe Guzaldo Molly Hagan Ron Dean Wilbert Bradley Dennis Farina
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	David Michael Frank

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/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 for the Hearing Impaired German for the Hearing Impaired French Italian Spanish Dutch Portuguese Polish Greek	Smoking	Yes, in fact, some of these guys are chain smokers.
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Billed as Chuck Norris’s other ‘best’ movie (although I don’t exactly know what that means), Code Of Silence is another 80s stalwart of super good good-guys and really bad bad-guys shooting it out until the best man wins. In this case, that’s not the guy with two Uzis strapped to his arms, but that’s an entirely different story.

    After his success with Lone Wolf McQuade, the supposed genesis of his Walker: Texas Ranger series, Chuck Norris revisited the big screen in this Chicago mobster flick, directed by none other than Andrew “It was the one-armed man” Davis, of The Fugitive fame. So what’s there to say about this one? With Chuck’s slightly wooden acting (don’t knock it, it worked for Arnie), Davis has him play Chicago police detective Eddie Cusack, who breaks the unwritten code of silence amongst the police and speaks out against one of his own. Ostracised by the force, he has to go it alone and take down two warring crime families and save a beautiful girl. Can he do it? Can a Texas Ranger skin a bear, break a drug trafficking ring, take a cat out of a tree for a little girl, and drive a tank through a warehouse of gun runners all in one day? You betchya!

    Sure there are elements of this movie that don’t work so well (what was with the robot?), but it has its intentions in the right place, aiming squarely for the B-grade movie market. It lacks the nihilistic comedy and the raw sadism of Verhoeven’s action/sci-fi classic Robocop, and does not have the tough guy charm of Bruce Willis in Die Hard. But it’s better than a whole lot of that other crap they tipped out of the Hollywood trash basket during the 80s, so I’m not complaining too much. In fact, it was better than I remembered, with some heartfelt moments that actually work, and some acting and directing that makes this one stand out a little from a lot of other tiresome 80s action movies.

    So, I guess you gotta ask yourself, are you feeling B-grade? Looking for a testosterone hit? Need to watch some s*** get blown up and shot full of holes? Some real tough guy acting and dialogue? If so, then Code Of Silence is definitely worth checking out.

Video

    Presented in 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced, this is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture quality is a touch grainy overall, which is indicative of a film of this era. It is not as good as the transfer done for Robocop: Special Edition, and suffers from some low-level noise which can get a little distracting. Shadow detail was far from excellent, and this is generally where most of the graininess and low-level noise crops up.

    Colour is fairly natural and well balanced, but the print is showing its age a bit.

    There are no glaring MPEG artefacts, and other than the low-level noise, all there is in the way of film-to-video transfer artefacts is the odd bit of mild aliasing and moire effect. On the whole, though, this was barely noticeable.

    There is the odd line down the screen for a second or two and a couple of hairs here and there - the usual stuff you would expect of a print this old. But as far as film artefacts goes, this is pretty clean.

    Subtitles are available in nine languages. They are white with a black border.

    This is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Like the release of Chuck’s earlier hit Lone Wolf McQuade, we are again presented with a plethora of audio tracks, however, they are only in Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono.

    The English track has decently rendered dialogue without any major audio sync flaws. Dialogue can sometimes be a little hard to hear and you have to really amp the sound up to catch it all. It would have been nice to have a stereo sound field, but I guess mono will do for Chuck’s oft-times gravelly, oft-times monosyllabic line delivery.

    Because of its mono origins, we have to make do without any directional cues or surround information. This is a real shame, because Code Of Silence has some genuinely good action set pieces, if you exclude the somewhat ludicrous final shoot-out.

    The score by David Frank is actually kinda good, and suits the film right down to its 80s roots and Chicago setting. It is hardly award winning stuff, but they have done a nice job of rendering it in a limited mono field.

    Now where was all the subwoofer use for the impacts of fists, feet, bullets, cars, and shotgun blasts? Sigh.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menus

    All menus are 16x9 enhanced. They are also silent.

Theatrical Trailer (2:35)

    Presented in 1.33:1 Full Frame, 2.0 Dolby Mono, this trailer gives away most of the film so don’t watch it before you watch the movie.

    The R1 version is identical barring the NTSC/PAL picture format, the region coding, and all the language options. If you have special language needs, go with our one. In fact, go with our release anyway because it’s cheaper.

    Code Of Silence is another 80s action bonanza, with some decent shoot-outs and lots of tough guy action, mid-80s style. It makes me nostalgic for my youth, but you might react differently to it. Some parts of it work really well, some parts not so well, but on the whole I kinda enjoyed it, even all these years on.

    Video is acceptable, but marred by graininess that, while not extreme, doesn’t do the show any favours.

    The 2.0 Dolby Digital Mono track had good reproduction of the original music, but is otherwise unexceptional.

    The extras were limited to a trailer.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall