My Brother-In-Law (Mio Cognato) (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	87:19
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Alessandro Piva
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Sergio Rubini Luigi Lo Cascio Mariangela Arcieri Alessandra Sarno Luigi Angelillo Carolina Felline Vito Cassano
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Ivan Iusco

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Italian 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	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This film is the seventh of eleven films in the Italian Film Festival 2004 box set. The films are very different and the only real link between them is that they were all made in Italy in the last couple of years. This one shares the fourth disc of the collection with The Wedding Dress.

    This one, My Brother-in-Law, is a bit of an odd little film, which although not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination is also not overly good either. It starts out like it's going to be a buddy comedy, but then nothing very funny happens, and considering the ending it cannot be considered anything but a drama, unless it's meant to be a black comedy. If it is meant to be a black comedy then I just didn't 'get it'. However, this categorisation difficulty does not preclude this film from being reasonable entertainment, although it is never really compelling.

    The story involves Toni (Sergio Rubini), an arrogant, loud-mouthed and loudly dressed insurance broker and his very straight and naive brother-in-law, Vito (Luigi Lo Cascio) who is married to Toni's younger sister, Anna. They don't get on particularly well and the film starts on the occasion of the christening of Toni's son, Ivan. Toni organises a reception for the family at a seaside eatery in Bari, where they live. Vito parks his boring car near Toni's flashy Saab convertible but it is Vito's car which gets stolen and a lemon left in its place. Vito, following his normal instincts, reports the theft to the police expecting that the insurance arranged for him by his brother-in-law will result in an easy payout. Unfortunately, to save money, Toni has only arranged for collision insurance, planning to adjust the policy if the car is stolen before reporting the theft. When Vito finds out he is naturally angry and demands that Toni help him find the car. It is here that the movie really begins as we begin to understand that Toni, aka ' The Professor', may be more than just an insurance broker and that the car theft may be more than bad luck. The film follows the pair's adventures during the night as they search for the car using all of Toni's criminal contacts and slowly develop some mutual respect.

    This film does a reasonable job of telling the story it has to tell, however, I was left with the feeling that very little actually happened and that the ending was a little strange and more than somewhat unfair. On the plus side, you certainly would not get the ending in a Hollywood film, which means that at least the film is original. The lead actors both do a good job of portraying their characters.

    Passably interesting but hardly a film to run out and tell everyone you know to see.

Video

    The video quality is very good, and is one of the best transfers in the box set.

    The feature is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio 16x9 enhanced which is the original aspect ratio.

    The picture was quite sharp and clear, better than most on this set, with no evidence of low level noise. Shadow detail was reasonable. There was some light grain.

    The colour was very good with no issues to report.

    Artefacts were restricted to some aliasing which was mostly minor and included spots at 20:18 on a grille and 80:28 on a car.

    There are burned-in subtitles in English which are clear and easy to read. One of the better subtitle sets in this box set despite not actually being a subtitle stream.

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 an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack encoded at 224 Kb/s.

    Dialogue seemed clear and there was no problem with audio sync that my very limited knowledge of Italian allowed me to detect.

    The music is light orchestral and modern dance music and did its job adequately.

    The surround speakers provided some mild atmosphere and the subwoofer was not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    None.

Menu

    The menu allows only for the selection of which movie to play.

    This film is available on DVD in Italy (Region 2) and includes a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, English subtitles, some deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette and some sort of commentary as far as I can make out using Google translator. On that basis the Region 2 version is the pick if you want this film.

    The video quality is quite good.

    The audio quality is good.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall