Con Express (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	90:25 (Case: 94)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Terry Cunningham
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Sean Patrick Flanery Arnold Vosloo Ursula Karven
Case	Click
RPI	$36.95	Music	Sean Murray

    The action film is a strange beast, often associated with limited intellect and even more limited acting requirements, but sometimes an action film comes out that demands a special place in filmgoers' memories. Under Siege 2 is not one of them, while Cliffhanger might qualify, but Con Express is described as being a mix of the two. To be brutally honest, when I received this DVD last Friday for review, I was expecting a big pile of crap, but I got something that was worthy of watching, and entertaining enough to take up ninety minutes of my time. This is quite surprising, given that the film is listed in the Internet Movie Database as being a direct-to-video effort.

    The film begins with customs agent Alex Brooks (Sean Patrick Flanery) meeting with senior officers to explain why he should get a position he has applied for in light of the major incident he was involved with. In flashback form, he tells them about how he acted upon a tip and raided a warehouse belonging to one Anton Simeonov (Arnold Vosloo). Also crashing the party is a Russian agent named Natalya (Ursula Karven), who wants to take Anton back to her homeland in order to answer to a list of charges as long as a man's arm. The reason why Alex wants Anton so badly is that the latter is attempting to smuggle some twenty-two million dollars worth of deadly Sarin gas and sell it to a third party.

    The chase picks up, of course, when the plane Alex, Natalya, and Anton are travelling on is hijacked by some of Anton's loyal warriors, who also intend to take over the train that has been loaded to take the Sarin back to Washington D.C., or something. Along the way, a myriad of gun battles ensue, and an airstrike is even called, which causes a hilarious continuity stuff-up when the make, model, and ordnance of the planes change at 71:43, then back again at 73:28. Nonetheless, in spite of the obviously low budget used to create this film, I am sure that action fans will be more than happy with it.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. Judging by the scene compositions, I am inclined to believe that this is an open-matte presentation.

    The transfer is very sharp, with plenty of detail in each shot, and plenty of subtle changes of colour apparent in the snowfields. The shadow detail is quite good, and there is no low-level noise.

    The colours are richly detailed and almost hyper-realistic at times, with greenery in particular having a rich, detailed look to it. There were no composite artefacts or smearing in evidence.

    MPEG artefacts were not apparent in this transfer. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some telecine wobble during the opening credits, and some aliasing that eventually became distracting to look at because of its frequency. The worst examples were over the whole frame during a shot when the train is heading towards the mountains at 48:55, on a house at 52:43, and on a seat at 64:58. Film artefacts were also a minor nuisance, with the occasional sizeable white mark appearing in the frame.

    There are no subtitles supplied on this DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The one soundtrack on this DVD is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 effort with a 224 kilobit per second bitrate, and it all comes out of the centre speaker whenever the Pro-Logic decoder in one's receiver is enabled. This contrasts with the 2.0 surround-encoded labelling on the packaging.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times, although some viewers may have problems with Arnold Vosloo's accent. There were no apparent problems with audio sync.

    The score music in this film is credited to Sean Murray. It complements the on-screen action without being particularly astounding.

    The surround channels are not used by this soundtrack, unless you count all of the sound being in the centre channel when the Pro-Logic decoder is enabled.

    The subwoofer was similarly not engaged.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The menu is static, silent, and not 16x9 Enhanced.

Trailer

    This one minute and twenty-three second trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with a similar Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.

    I tried to find online reviews of this DVD, but came up empty. It is available in Region 1, so if anyone owns the Region 1 version and can confirm that there is any difference in formatting (i.e. Widescreen instead of what appears to be open-matte), then please let me know.

    Con Express is a fairly run-of-the-mill action story, but the directing, execution, and acting make it worth watching a couple of times.

    The video transfer is good.

    The audio transfer is flat mono.

    There is one extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall