Stormy Monday (Force) (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Menu Animation & Audio Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	88:58 (Case: 93)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Mike Figgis
Studio Distributor	British Screen Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	Sean Bean Melanie Griffith Tommy Lee Jones Sting
Case	C-Button-Version 2-Opaque
RPI	$19.95	Music	Mike Figgis Various

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Written and directed by Mike Figgis, Stormy Monday is a terse romantic thriller, which is sometimes rather brutal and confronting.

    If you haven't seen this movie, then I suggest you skip the rest of this plot synopsis. While I pride myself on giving away as little as possible, nothing in this story is spoon-fed to the audience. The plot's exposition is very slow and deliberate, and the connection between the characters is unclear until well into the movie.

    Set in the bleak waterfront area of Newcastle, England, a ruthless property developer and gangster, Cosmo (Tommy Lee Jones) arrives to buy up the area for redevelopment. However, the owner of a jazz club, Finney (Sting) won't sell out. Cosmo starts to place pressure on Finney, and discovers that Finney is not the push-over he was expecting. Soon, Finney's cleaner Brendan (Sean Bean), and his girlfriend, Kate (Melanie Griffith), are drawn into a web of violence and intimidation. Pretty soon, somebody is really going to get hurt . . .

Video

    The transfer is severely limited by the source material, and by being non-16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced

    The sharpness is variable and sometimes it is quite soft, for example at 26:12. There is also a problem that I cannot put a name to -- parts of the image (most noticeably a face) appears to stretch horizontally on occasion. An example of this occurs at 73:56. Furthermore, the shadow detail is very poor, for example consider the car interiors at 1:45 and 33:09.

    The colour is very subdued, and appears to be undersaturated.

    While MPEG artefacts were not a great problem, the movie looks like it is highly compressed, and it appears slightly pixelated throughout. Film-to-video artefacts were not a problem, but film artefacts appear infrequently throughout.

    There are no subtitles, and this is a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There is only one audio option, English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.

    The dialogue quality and audio sync are fine.

    The original music is provided by the movie's writer/director, Mike Figgis. There is also a lot of jazz (especially free jazz) and blues music used, which suits the movie well, especially as it is largely set in a jazz club.

    There is no surround presence nor subwoofer activity.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The extras are slim.

Menu

    A very simple menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio.

Theatrical Trailer (1:26)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital stereo audio.

    Stormy Monday is due for release on DVD in Region 1 in September 2002. The two versions appear to be basically the same, except that the R1 version will include a 1.33:1 transfer as well.

    Stormy Monday is a moody movie, poorly presented on DVD.

    The video quality is slightly disappointing but still very watchable.

    The audio quality is reasonable.

    The extras are really not worth mentioning.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall