Control Factor (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	84:19
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Nelson McCormick
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Adam Baldwin Elizabeth Berkley Tony Todd Conrad Dunn John Neville Ann Marin Peter Spence Susan Potvin David Ferry Mif Raoul Bhaneja Lisa Messinger Joel Rinzler
Case	?
RPI	$14.95	Music	Pete Kneser

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired French German Dutch Czech Greek Hungarian Polish French Titling German Titling	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    A crazed gunman starts shooting up a local insurance office. He points the barrel at the head of employee Lance Bishop (Adam Baldwin) before saying "if you only knew what I know", mentioning Lance by name. At that moment, the gunman is himself shot by the building's security guards. Shortly thereafter, Lance starts hearing voices telling him to kill his wife Karen (Elizabeth Berkley) and starts to think that the two events are somehow linked. As he delves deeper and deeper, he realises that the Government has perfected Stage One of their new mind control technology, with more widespread chaos to follow.

    Lance stumbles upon a chap called Reggie (Tony Todd), a bit of a techno freak who is already aware of the mind control experiments - the two share more in common than either knows. With Reggie's technical skills and the insurance nose of Lance, the two prepare for a David and Goliath battle against the government. That is, unless the mind controllers can send them insane first.

    Whilst the movie itself fell flat with me, the acting from Adam Baldwin, Tony Todd and Elizabeth Berkley did go a long way towards maintaining my interest somewhat. If this movie was to be remade with a bigger budget, better effects and a more polished script, I would have no hesitation in heartily recommending it.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    Overall the picture is not too bad, but is more reminiscent of a high quality VCR image than a crystal clear DVD image. This may be due to the source material rather than being a transfer issue. Shadow detail is good with enough detail being present during the low light scenes. These sections, however, contain considerable amounts of grain with really dark or fully black areas being almost non-existent due to the speckled appearance of these images. There is frequent low level noise.

    Colour is quite well saturated but there are no examples of full, vibrant colours. The best example would be the computer screen at 48:36 with varying shades of blue, red and green shown on the monitor.

    As I mentioned earlier there is a considerable level of grain present in the lower light areas of the film. This grain also seeps into sections that are grey or off-white, particularly objects such as walls and occasionally the ceiling. This is the real killer with this image, as everything else is not too bad. Aliasing is an artefact that I did not notice, although I was expecting a few instances to show up. Film artefacts were absent altogether.

    Subtitles are close to but not an exact replica of the spoken word.

    This disc is single sided and single layered so it is not affected by a layer transition.

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. The default is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. French and German Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks are available as well. I listened to the English soundtrack in its entirety.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times. Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer.

    The musical score by Pete Kneser was typical of a low budget sci-fi movie with no real surprises or impressions made (on this viewer at least). The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    The surround channels were well used for ambience, music and for special effects. When that mind-controlling deep voice starts it really penetrates your skull from all directions.

    The subwoofer was barely noticeable, nor was it really missed or required by this soundtrack. There were a few instances where the subwoofer placed a nice bottom end on the sound.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras present on this disc.

Menu

    It would appear from the information I could find that all regions fare much the same with this DVD.

    The three main characters put in a solid performance but unfortunately it's not enough to overcome the other failings of this movie.

    The video quality was typical of limited budget movies.

    The audio quality is fine but there are no real surprises or excitement to be found in this soundtrack.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall