Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio Deleted Scenes-Seven Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer-Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee Teaser Trailer-Madman Propaganda
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	71:58
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Shane Meadows
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Paddy Considine Dean Palinczuk Olivia Colman Richard Graham Seamus O'Neill Shane Meadows
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Scor-zay-zee

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

     With his last two films, British filmmaker Shane Meadows seems determined to avoid being pigeonholed. Following his dark 2004 film, Dead Man's Shoes and the confronting, This Is England, Meadows surprised everyone with a gentle and moving film, Somers Town. His latest venture, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is an even further departure from those dark dramas. Although all of Shane Meadows films contain elements of humour, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is his first genuine comedy. It is a low-budget, faux documentary made with a limited crew and shot using a utilitarian style.

     The premise is quite simple. Le Donk (Paddy Considine) is an ex-band roadie who is now trying his hand at managing a "wannabe" rap artist, Scor-zay-zee (Dean Palinczuk). With a small documentary film crew in-toe (headed by Shane Meadows, playing himself), we follow Le Donk as he wheels and deals to secure Scor-zay-zee a supporting gig with British band, Arctic Monkeys. Naturally, not everything goes smoothly.

     Much of the dialogue is seemingly improvised and many of the jokes may be lost on foreign audiences, but Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is still a reasonably enjoyable film. There's no doubting this is a casual and modest film by Shane Meadows, but then again I don't believe it was ever intended to be much else. Worth a look.

Video

     Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, which is 16x9 enhanced. While I couldn't actually confirm the original aspect ratio, it appears correct.

     The transfer exhibited decent sharpness throughout. Blacks were clean and shadow detail was very good. Colours appeared natural and well balanced. There were no MPEG artefacts evident in the transfer. Film-to-video artefacts weren't problematic and film artefacts were non-existent.

     Unfortunately, there are no subtitles available on the disc. This would have been handy in a few scenes to assist with some heavy accents.

     This is a DVD 9 disc. The layer change is well placed and occurs at 57:00.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

     There is only one audio track available on the DVD, English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kb/s), which is surround encoded.

     As I mentioned previously, some accents in the film are a little heavy at times, but generally I coped with the dialogue fine. Regardless, any issues with comprehension certainly didn't stem from problems with the transfer. Audio sync appeared to be accurate.

     Original music is credited to Scor-zay-zee. This is obviously all the rap music used in the film. However, there is also quite a bit of music from other artists, including Meadows regular, Gavin Clark.

     It's nothing startling, but the surround encoded audio track supplied some nice crowd noise and music through the rear channels. The subwoofer came to life during music scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

     The main menu is static, 16x9 enhanced and features a sample of rap music from the film.

Deleted Scenes (20:16)

     A selection of seven scenes, which failed to make the final cut.

Theatrical Trailer - Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee (2:04)

Madman Propaganda Trailers

• This Is England (2:13)
• Bunny And The Bull (2:24)
• Somers Town (2:04)
• In The Loop (2:32)

     While it's miles from his best work, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee is a mildly enjoyable film from Shane Meadows. The main characters aren't particularly endearing and much of the humour is hit and miss, but at least the film doesn't wear out its welcome.

     The video and audio transfers are fine. The deleted scenes are quite amusing and worth a look.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall