Dolan's Cadillac (Blu-ray) (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Featurette-Behind the Wheel of Dolan's Cadillac Interviews-Cast & Crew Gallery-Behind the Scenes Gallery-Photo-Movie Cast Stills Trailer-Eagle Entertainment Trailers More…-The Red Baron Promotional Materials
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	88:52 (Case: 86)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jeff Beesley
Studio Distributor	Mindseye Eagle Entertainment	Starring	Christian Slater Emmanuelle Vaugier Wes Bentley Greg Bryk Al Sapienza
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	$29.95	Music	James Mark Stewart

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Unknown	English DTS HD Master Audio English Dolby Digital 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Robinson (Wes Bentley) and his wife Elizabeth (Emmanuelle Vaugier) are ordinary, happily married Las Vegas school teachers trying to start a family. Their world changes forever when Elizabeth witnesses an execution committed by crime boss Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater), a man who traffics women across the Mexican border to work in his brothels. Although reluctant to become involved, Robinson and Elizabeth realise that Dolan will try to silence Elizabeth so they agree to help the Federal Authorities convict Dolan. However before Elizabeth can testify she is murdered before Robinson’s eyes. Without a witness the case against Dolan is dropped causing Robinson to lapse into despair amid alcohol and drugs. His way back to his life, he believes, is to kill Dolan. But Dolan is protected by body guards and his bomb and bullet proof black Cadillac so Robinson hatches a plan that makes the thing that protects Dolan his destroyer.

     Based on a 1993 Stephen King short story of the same name, Dolan’s Cadillac is a tightly structured revenge tale with a deliciously vile characterisation of sleazy Las Vegas mobster Jimmy Dolan from Christian Slater. Dolan has few redeeming features and the film’s interest is to see just how Robinson is going to get past Dolan’s protection to hand out retribution. As the avenging Robinson Wes Bentley is good, although somewhat overshadowed by Slater’s performance, and Emmanuelle Vaugier is also fine.

     The film looks good, although the outdoor sequences have a yellow tinge. In the extras it is revealed that the film was mainly shot in Saskatchewan, Canada, which had a lot of very green grass that had to be removed in post production to become the desert outside Las Vegas (I don’t include here the deliberately desaturated colour palate used to represent the effects of heat when Robinson works in the sun on a road construction gang). I do think this post production work affects the look of the film but this is not a fault of the DVD. The Director Jeff Beesley in one of the extras said he was trying to make a ”Saturday night, popcorn movie” and he succeeds admirably. In fact, he undersells his film as it does comment on civic responsibility and the negative effect upon the psyche of an otherwise decent man seeking vengeance through violence. As an action film Dolan’s Cadillac builds its tension up neatly and logically. At less than 90 minutes, Dolan’s Cadillac is a tight, well told story which never outstays its welcome as it moves towards its horrible conclusion.

Video

    Dolan’s Cadillac is presented in a ratio of 2.35:1, which is the original ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced. It has the sharpness and clarity one expects of a film made last year, blacks are solid and shadow detail very good. I saw only a couple of very minor white artefacts. The outdoor sequences have quite a yellow tinge as I mentioned above and this does affect the skin tones. There are no subtitles.

     Lip Synchronisation is perfect.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Audio is a choice between English DTS-HD MA and Dolby Digital 5.1. I listened to the DTS track and sampled the Dolby Digital.

     The DTS is an excellent track. The surrounds are used constantly for music and effects and panning is good without being overdone. The sub woofer is used for the score and effects and supports the action well. One slight issue I found was that occasionally the dialogue (such as the opening voiceover) was hard to hear because of the music. As there are no subtitles one cannot check what is being said. Otherwise dialogue was clear. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is also good but has slightly less sharpness than the DTS. There is nothing to complain about with either track.

     The music by James Mark Stewart provided great support and helped increase the tension in a number of sequences.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Behind the Wheel of Dolan’s Cadillac (23:21)

Interviews

     Jeff Beesley speaks about how he got involved and his approach to the film, calling it a ”Saturday night, popcorn movie” (3:09 min).

     Christian Slater comments on the character of Dolan (1:36 min).

     Wes Bentley covers his character, revenge and Stephen King (6:14 min).

     Emmanuelle Vaugier comments on her character’s motivations (1:57 min).

Behind the Scenes Gallery

Movie Stills

Trailers

Red Baron Promotional Featurettes

     Pixomondo Visual Effects Featurette (11:59 min) A look at how the visual effects were created for The Red Baron which includes some interesting green screen comparisons with completed footage used in the film.

     Music Clip: Reamonn – Open Skies (4:35 min)

    A Blu-ray of Dolan’s Cadillac is due to be released in the USA on 6 April 2010. Specifications and extras are not known at this stage. At this time there seems no reason to go beyond our release.

    Based on a 1993 Stephen King short story of the same name Dolan’s Cadillac is a tight, action packed revenge tale with a deliciously vile characterisation of a sleazy Las Vegas mobster from Christian Slater. At less than 90 minutes, it never outstays its welcome as it moves towards its horrible and satisfying conclusion. Dolan’s Cadillac is presented on a Blu-ray with good video and audio and a reasonable selection of extras. To my mind, it is one of the more satisfying adaptations of King’s work.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall