Flesh and Bone (1993)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	121:02
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (61:25)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Steven Kloves
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Dennis Quaid James Caan Meg Ryan Gwyneth Paltrow Scott Wilson Christopher Rydell Julia McNeal Ron Kuhlman Jerry Swindall Ryan Bohls Barbara Alyn Woods James N. Harrell Gerardo Johnson
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Thomas Newman

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian 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 Hungarian Polish Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Slovenian Arabic Czech Turkish Romanian Serbian German French Spanish Italian	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

       "You and me, we're flesh and bone. The same blood that runs my veins, runs yours." Roy Sweeney (James Caan)
 

    Flesh and Bone is a modest little psychological thriller from 1993 that I had not heard of at all before. If it received a theatrical release here in Australia at all it must have been very brief and, judging by the stats on the IMDB, nor was the film a success at the US box office either. It probably should have been more successful, given the stellar cast. Certainly the film is quite well acted and ably steered by an unknown writer/director (Steven Kloves, the only film he had previously directed being The Fabulous Baker Boys (ahem), but with somewhat more success in the screenwriting department, including subsequently the Harry Potter screenplays).

    After a rather bizarre introductory sequence involving a crucial traumatic event in the life of a young boy, Arlis Sweeney, at the hands of his cruel father, Roy (James Caan), the movie jumps somewhat jarringly straight to the present day, where Arlis (Dennis Quaid) is now an adult. Arlis is a vending machine distributor in rural America. He is a recluse, travelling alone from small hick town to small hick town, spending his days filling all sorts of vending machines from soup dispensers to pretzel vendors to wash-room condom-vending machines, and dealing with (it seems) the same ubiquitous lonely country people from town to town. His life is pretty routine and uneventful - just the way Arlis likes it - until he meets the loud, unbashful and drunk Kay Davies (Meg Ryan). The two strike an unlikely friendship and also have a clear attraction for each other. The only trouble is that Kay is married, rather unhappily as it turns out.

    Enter into our story a mysterious nomad girl named Ginnie (Gwyneth Paltrow), who appears to breeze through each country town alone, wearing very little and confidently and unashamedly robbing innocent country folk blind, committing all manner of petty crimes, before moving on to the next town. This girl clearly has no real conscience and we find out is especially hateful of men, due it seems to some event in her past (but did I mention that she wears very little?...). It turns out that Ginnie is not alone though; she is in fact the floozy of Roy Sweeney and follows the older man around like a puppy at his beck and call - although exactly why we never really get to understand - an annoying character inconsistency, as by this point in the film it has been well established that Ginnie is a tough, street-wise, man-hating young girl who can well take care of herself, thanks very much. Anyway, it turns out that Roy Sweeney is not out of Arlis' life for good, and dear old dad delights in emotionally traumatising our poor good-intentioned Arlis, until a psychological plot climax that links all the characters together in a nail-biting (yawn) but reasonably satisfying conclusion.

    The film would have been more successful if the plot and characters had been ironed-out a bit better. As it is the film is reasonable entertainment but not much more.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. I am unable to confirm the original theatrical aspect ratio for this film, but would be very surprised if it was anything greater than 1.85:1.

    The transfer is dated and displays a noticeable softness in resolution. There is also noticeable film grain in the lower light scenes, distracting from image sharpness, yet for most daylight scenes grain is much less distracting. Shadow detail is passable, but not great - a very good example of the transfer's inability to provide more definitive shadow details is to be found in the house break-in sequence at night, in chapter 2. No low level noise issues are noted.

    Colours are quite faithfully rendered with no major issues. The film utilises a rather dreary colour palette, no doubt to highlight the mundaneness and monotony of the central characters' sleepy town lifestyles. However skin tones are quite natural, colours acceptably saturated and black levels fine.

    There are no MPEG artefacts, no material film-to-video artefacts (with only two very minor instances of aliasing noted on my set-up) and film artefacts quite well contained, being restricted to only the odd fleck or negative artefact here and there.

    There is a choice of some 24 subtitle languages. The English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles are in a clear font, very easy to read, well timed and accurate enough (just with the usual liberties taken here and there to abbreviate some lines of dialogue). The subtitle stream is placed just a little higher up on the frame than is necessary, and so can become distracting to the on-screen action.

    The disc is RSDL-formatted, with the layer change at 61:25. This is very well placed indeed, being in between scenes during a fade-to-black, and the change is negotiated seamlessly by my player.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are 5 audio language track options, with the English being a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix (at 448 Kb/s).

    Dialogue quality is fine, although I did have a bit of trouble picking up the odd line of that thick southern accent. There are no problems with audio sync.

    The music score includes some nice use of stereo, as well as some nice front to back separation. The music score complements the film without being obtrusive.

    The rear speakers are employed effectively at times, but then remain silent for large periods. When engaged, they receive effective use to fill out the music score and for various sound effects (including the obligatory thunder clap) and ambience.

    The subwoofer only gets very occasional use to emphasise dramatic passages of music and for occasional LFE.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The main menu is a very basic, static menu with no audio. It is presented in 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced.

    The video and audio transfers are both quite decent, but there are no extras.

    Worth a rent on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall