Chaos (2006/I) (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-Man About Town, The Big White, The Covenant
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	102:05 (Case: 98)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Tony Giglio
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Jason Statham Wesley Snipes Ryan Phillippe Justine Waddell Henry Czerny Nicholas Lea Jessica Steen
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Trevor Jones

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    After a hostage situation on a bridge goes awry, resulting in the death of the hostage and the hostage taker, hostage negotiator and investigator Quentin Connors (Jason Statham) is suspended from the force despite having done everything by the book during the incident. He is quickly reinstated when the criminal at the centre of a highly organised bank heist, who gives his name only as "Lorenz" (Wesley Snipes), insists he will only negotiate with Connors. Connors is paired with a rookie cop (Ryan Phillipe) whose main goal is to ensure the pair don't screw up.

    The bank job is over quickly, but the police at the scene are unsure of what exactly has been stolen until the FBI identify a connection to an Arab investor. A significantly more elaborate plot unfurls as Connors and his partners track down the culprits.

    There's also some rather miss-guided guff about chaos theory thrown in to try and intellectualise this formula thriller, but it seems little more than an excuse to give the movie a cool title.

    Chaos is a fairly middle of the road crime thriller that tries a little too hard to be clever. In the end it suffers from one too many plot holes and a twist more than the script can handle. It is not really a shocker, in fact it's quite watchable, but it is instantly forgettable. Anyone looking for action along the lines of much of Jason Statham's, or even Wesley Snipe's, recent fare will be disappointed.

Video

    The video is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced. The original aspect ratio for the film is 2.35:1.

    The image is soft, but reasonably even throughout. The film is moderately grainy throughout and there is a significant amount of low level noise visible. The level of grain is most noticeable in scenes that have a lot of contrasting light and dark colours, such as around the 11:00 mark. A handful of minor film artefacts are visible throughout.

    The contrast level in the transfer is quite poor and subsequently there is virtually no detail in darker areas. This is particularly frustrating in the latter half of the movie, which mostly takes place at night. During one scene in particular, what should appear like two men with guns drawn walking up stairs in a dark house looks like two floating heads and sets of hands floating by a banister - even their guns blend into the void. This issue also makes many of the colours seem slightly un-natural.

    There are no MPEG compression-related artefacts noticeable, which is moderately surprising given that this is a single layer transfer.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The feature contains one audio track; English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kb/s).

    The dialogue throughout the feature is generally quite clear and at a good level in the mix. The dialogue does occasionally appear a little out of sync due to some poor ADR, such as Jason Statham's voice at around 10:30.

    There is little surround channel usage in the pro logic mix. What little there is mainly enhances a few explosion effects and musical tracks. There is only a small amount of bottom end that reaches the subwoofer.

    The score is functional without particularly standing out.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    This disc opens with the dreaded piracy trailer that cannot be skipped or fast forwarded. The only "extras" on this disc are trailers for Man About Town, The Big White and The Covenant.

    Chaos is currently unavailable in Region 1.

    Chaos is a mediocre cop thriller that has been given a poor transfer to DVD.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall