Chances Are (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Theatrical Trailer Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	103:57
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Emile Ardolino
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Cybill Shepherd Robert Downey, Jr. Ryan O'Neal Mary Stuart Masterson
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$36.95	Music	Maurice Jarre

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French German Italian Spanish Dutch Arabic Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish Turkish	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, song "After All" sung over closing titles

    Chances are, after seeing Chances Are, you may wish you didn't see it. Although the plot summary sounded vaguely promising, I wasn't terribly impressed with the execution and also failed to warm to the characters.

    The film starts with a wedding between Louie Jeffries (Christopher McDonald) and Corinne (Cybill Shepherd). Just before the wedding, Louie's best friend as well as best man for the wedding, Philip Train (Ryan O'Neal) reveals that he is secretly and hopelessly in love with Corinne. Instead of creating a scene, Louie just smiles at Philip and says "I know," which is supposed to indicate to the audience that the bond of friendship and trust between them is so strong that Louie knows a declaration of love by his friend does not imply that any hanky panky has happened or even will happen between Philip and Corinne. Took me a while to figure that one out, though.

    Anyway, we cut to their first wedding anniversary. Louie and Corinne are still hopelessly in love with one another, and Corinne reveals to Louie that she is pregnant. Best friend Philip still hangs around them like a loyal dog. He barges into the house and disturbs their moment of intimacy, but instead of being annoyed they welcome him with open arms.

    During the day, Louie - who works as a district attorney in a trial against known Mafia-like crime lord Anthony Bonino (Gianni Russo) - loses his case due to the presiding Judge Fenwick (Josef Sommer) refusing to admit a crucial piece of evidence. Later on, on the basis of a tip, he discovers that Judge Fenwick is on the take and Louie manages to photograph the Judge receiving an envelope (presumably full of money) from Bonino.

    However, before Louie can develop the negatives, and on his way to meet Corinne for their anniversary dinner, he gets run over by a car and dies.

    At this point, the film deteriorates rapidly from being promising to annoying. In a farcical Pearly Gates scene reminiscent of Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait, Louie manages to convince the two attendants processing the dead that he doesn't deserve to die and wants to reunite with his wife. Unfortunately, the only way he can do that is by being reborn as the buffoon-like Alex Finch (Robert Downey, Jr.). Unfortunately, in Louie's rush to get back to another body, the attendant forgets to give him the vital injection that makes him forget his past life.

    Fast forward 23 years. Corinne is still pining after her long dead husband, to the extent that she still cook meals for him. Plus she obviously has nun-like powers of self control, because she has remained chaste all these years. Philip is still madly in love with her, but like a True Friend, he still hasn't done anything about it out of respect for Corinne's memories of Louie. In the meantime, Louie and Corinne's daughter Miranda (Mary Stuart Masterson) has grown up to be a pretty woman.

    Miranda meets Alex at Yale University where he has recently graduated and is looking for a job. She is attracted to him and takes him home to meet her mother. When he meets Corinne and the house that they live in, all his memories as Louie come flooding back.

    The rest of the film is a somewhat predictable romantic comedy in which Alex tries to win back Corinne and convince her he is the reincarnation of her husband, whilst avoiding the increasingly amorous intentions of Miranda who Alex now regards as a daughter. Philip in the meantime is still trying to build up his courage to declare his love to Corinne.

    Maybe this film would have worked with a different cast but somehow I doubt it. I just find the storyline completely unbelievable. Alex remembers where everything is kept in a house he has never been in before - how many houses do you know where the furniture and items in drawers etc. have not shifted in 23 years? Corinne and Philip behaves exactly as they do 23 years ago, they just look a little older. The ending seems a bit convenient, and the characters don't even question the change in events/behaviour of a key character. And the whole sub-plot around Judge Fenwick is handled almost as an after-thought, and could easily have been removed from the storyline altogether.

    Bottom line: watch this only if you happen to like Robert Downey, Jr.

Video

    We are presented with a widescreen 1.78:1 16x9 enhanced transfer which is fairly close to the intended aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    Although the transfer itself is pleasant enough with reasonable colours, it comes across as overly soft, as if the soft focus lens was permanently on.

    Nearly two hours of film has been fitted onto a single sided single layered disc, but the encoding has been reasonably handled as compression artefacts are limited to minor pixelization and occasional low level Gibb's effect ringing. I did not detect any edge enhancement issues, although I actually wouldn't mind some artificial sharpening of the soft picture and some contrast enhancement. The film source is relatively clean and I did not notice any major instances of grain.

    There are a number of English and foreign language subtitle tracks present. I turned on the English subtitle track briefly just to verify that it exists.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are a number of audio tracks present: English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded (192Kb/s), French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), German Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded (192Kb/s), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192Kb/s). I listened to the English audio track.

    The English audio track is pleasant-sounding and I did not have any issues with it. Dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times, and I did not detect any audio synchronization issues.

    The rear surround channel (a mono channel spread across both physical rear speakers) is consistently utilised for music ambience but I did not detect any Foley effects directed towards the rear.

    I did not detect any significant use of low frequencies in the audio track.

    The original music score by Maurice Jarre is standard romantic comedy material. The opening titles feature the song "Chances Are" performed by Johnny Mathis and the closing credits feature the love theme called "After All" performed by Peter Cetera and Cher and composed by Tom Snow. A number of other songs are also interspersed throughout the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    Extras are fairly minimal on this disc.

Menu

    The menus are static and full frame, and feature a blue/mauve background.

Theatrical Trailer (1:55)

    This is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (not sure whether it is full frame or pan & scan - I suspect the former) and with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    This is a number of text stills providing a brief biography (which is basically where they were born and what awards they have received) and filmography for the following:

• Emile Ardolino (director)
• Cybill Shepherd ("Corinne Jeffries")
• Robert Downey, Jr. ("Alex Finch")

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Full frame video transfer
• French and Spanish Dolby Digital surround encoded audio tracks (R4 has mono or non-surround encoded tracks)

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Cast and crew biographies
• additional foreign language audio tracks and subtitle tracks

    The difference between the two region releases do not appear to be significant but seem to slightly favour Region 4 (unless of course you like full frame transfers).

    Chances Are did not really appeal to me but I may be in the minority based on other reviews on the 'net. The video transfer seemed a bit soft but otherwise was okay and the audio transfer is acceptable. Extras are minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall