Corrado (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Crime	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	76:51
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Adamo P. Cultraro
Studio Distributor	Taomina Films Ovation	Starring	Tom Sizemore Tony Curran Johnny Messner Frank Stallone Michael Bailey Smith John Fiore
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Ryan Franks

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Corrado (Johnny Messner) is a cold blooded professional hit man in Las Angeles doing kills on assignment for his handler Frankie (Joseph R. Gannascoli). He accepts a job to kill Vittorio, the 85 year old patriarch of a local crime family, and make it look like an accident. However, the hit goes wrong when Julia (Candace Elaine), Vittorio’s nurse, stumbles into the room. Vittorio’s son Paulo (Tom Sizemore) cannot believe that Julia is innocent of involvement in his father’s death; Corrado, still nearby, saves Julia against his better judgement. Together they are hunted by all the resources Paulo can unleash, including Salvatore (Edoardo Ballerini) and the crocked police officer Tony (Tony Curran). Will Corrado be able to neutralise Paulo and his men before they are able to kill both him and Julia?

     Corrado is not a very good film. The plotting is obvious, the character’s motivations make no sense and the dialogue is juvenile with lots of swear words and tough guy voiceovers supposed to be clever such as “their unfulfilled promises are the bounced cheques of my world". The acting is also weak; Johnny Messner and Candace Elaine have minimal screen presence and no spark between them and even Tom Sizemore, who can be excellent when he has a script and a good director to work with (Saving Private Ryan or Heat anyone), just looks silly. Writer / producer / director Adamo P. Cultraro was obviously keen on the project but his direction is amateurish and inconsistent. There are the occasional jump cuts, the odd freeze frame and lots of moving camera shots that do nothing for the film. In one scene the camera pans quickly (and jerkily) three times up and down a female’s cleavage. This was obviously a very low budget affair. Sets are low key and pretty bare, the scenes supposedly at LAX have very few people in them, and in one sequence with a short gunfight people are seen walking around in the background paying no attention to what is going on. One character also has a handgun that makes Dirty Harry’s .44 Magnum look like a toy. It is that sort of film.

     Corrado probably only got to see the light of day because of the involvement of Tom Sizemore (he also got a producer credit). It is by no means a terrible film, just rather amateurish but at 76 minutes it runs by quickly enough. Probably one to watch with a few drinks to get an early night.

Video

     Corrado is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The IMDb does not give the original ratio but I suspect that this is a pan and scan transfer. This is mostly not noticeable except in a few places then people are talking when the panning is obvious or where hands or guns disappear outside the frame. There are also occasions when the top of a character’s head is cut off by the top of the frame (for example 14:14).

     The print itself was not too bad. Blacks are fine and shadow detail good. Colours are on the flat side but good enough, and the print is reasonably sharp although brightness, contrast and skin tones vary occasionally. There were many scenes where the characters are placed in front of light sources; sometimes this can be quite distracting; see, for example, the illuminated background during almost the entire final sequence (around 61:38) that leads up to the confrontation between Paulo and Corrado.

     There is mild grain but artefacts are absent.

     There are no subtitles.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     The only audio choice is English Dolby Digital 2.0 at 224 Kbps. This track is surround encoded and so music and some sound effects were directed to the surround speakers quite well. The track was mostly quite effective, except for the dialogue. On quite a few occasions the dialogue proved to be hard to hear – turning up the volume did not help. Sometimes this was because the actor’s delivery was mumbled or indistinct, on other occasions, such as when people are talking in a car, the sound effects drown out the dialogue. I don’t think any of this was a deliberate choice. As there are no subtitles one cannot find out what people are saying.

     The music by Ryan Franks does the job without being obtrusive.

     Lip synchronisation is fine.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

     Nothing, not even a trailer.

     I cannot find any other version of the film currently available on the various sites. So I guess Region 4 is the best version.

     Corrado is not a very good film. The plotting is obvious, the dialogue is juvenile, the acting is universally weak and the direction amateurish. Probably one to watch with a few drinks to get an early night.

     The video looks pan and scan, the audio, except for the dialogue is OK, there are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall