Shadow Makers (Fat Man and Little Boy) (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	121:21
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (59:41)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Roland Joffé
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Paul Newman Dwight Schultz Bonnie Bedelia John Cusack Laura Dern Ron Frazier John C. McGinley Natasha Richardson Ron Vawter Michael Brockman Del Close John Considine Allan Corduner
Case	?
RPI	$24.95	Music	Ennio Morricone

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Arabic Bulgarian Czech Danish German English Spanish Greek French Hebrew Croatian Icelandic Italian Hungarian Dutch Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Slovenian Serbian Finnish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Titling French Titling Italian Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Shadow Makers is a fascinating and well-made film about The Manhattan Project, which is the project initiated by the United States government to develop the atomic bomb shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. As far as I can tell this movie follows the story as it actually happened quite closely.

    During 1942, the US decided to set up a project to develop the atomic bomb because there was great concern at the time that Germany would develop one first. Accordingly, an Army officer from the Engineers Corps was put in charge. His name was General Leslie 'Dick' Groves (Paul Newman) and he had recently completed the construction of the Pentagon. He offered the scientific lead on the project to Dr J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz), a brilliant scientist. Groves and Oppenheimer decided to create a headquarters for the project in Los Alamos, New Mexico to keep it away from prying eyes and ears. To this headquarters they brought some of the most gifted scientists in the US and other countries to work together on creating an atomic bomb. Amongst these was Michael Merriman (John Cusack).

    They worked on designing and building the bomb until they successfully tested it in 1945, followed shortly by its use against the Japanese in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The movie takes an even-handed approach to this story, not being overly gung-ho but showing what an incredible technical achievement it was as well as showing the moral and ethical issues which were raised during the project and by the bomb's use. The movie shows the personal and physical cost which the scientists involved had to pay for the project to succeed.

    Other characters who are important in the movie include Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty (Bonnie Bedelia), his mistress Jean Tatlock (Natasha Richardson), the project's medico, Capt Richard Schoenberg (John C. McGinley from Scrubs) and a base nurse, Kathleen Robinson (Laura Dern).

    I found this film fascinating from start to finish, full of tension, drama and interesting historical information. I felt the cast did a good job making their characters come to life. It showed both sides of the debate over whether or not the bomb should be used against Japan. This film was called Fat Man & Little Boy when it was originally released in the US in 1989. Shadow Makers is the UK title.

    Recommended if you enjoy movies about recent history or science.

Video

    The video quality is very good indeed. It is one of the best transfers I have seen for a pre-1990 film.

    The feature is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. There was some very light grain. The shadow detail was pretty good but not quite at the level of more recent films.

    The colour was very good, despite the harsh desert light of the location.

    The only artefacts I noticed were some very mild aliasing on two sets of Venetian blinds and a small jump in the film at 58:50.

    There are subtitles in 24 languages including English & English for the hearing impaired. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read but quite heavily summarised from the spoken word. Occasionally whole lines were missing. Despite this, I do not think that any important details were lost.

    The layer change occurs at 59:41 and was not particularly noticeable.
    

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The audio quality is very good.

    This DVD contains five audio options, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 448 Kb/s, a German Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 192 Kb/s and the same in Spanish, French & Italian. The film was originally in stereo and has been remastered into 5.1. The remastering has been done well without going overboard.

    Dialogue was reasonably clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync, although some lines were a little indistinct and the plethora of subtitles came in handy.

    The score of this film by Ennio Morricone is very good indeed, adding significantly to the drama and tension of the film.

    The surround speakers added some mild directional effects and atmosphere. Considering the stereo source, the surrounds are well used including plane sounds and explosions. Generally, the sound was quite immersive.

     The subwoofer was also well used starting in the opening credits and then adding drama to tense scenes and significant bass to the various explosions (which are to be expected in a movie about making bombs!).

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    There are no extras at all. This is shame as a documentary about the subject would have been most welcome.

Menu

    The menu included stills, and the ability to select scenes, languages and subtitles.

    This movie has been released in the same basic format in all Regions, except of course for the title change and NTSC/PAL differences. On that basis you may as well buy the local product.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The disc has no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall