Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Introduction Menu Animation & Audio Scene Selection Anim & Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes Audio Commentary-Gurinder Chadha (Director) & Paul Mayeda (Co-Writer) Deleted Scenes-10 Featurette-Who Wants To Cook Aloo Gobi? Cookery Featurette Music Video Theatrical Trailer Notes-Aloo Gobi Recipe
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	107:35
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (79:14)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Gurinder Chadha
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Parminder Nagra Keira Knightley Jonathan Rhys-Meyers Anupam Kher Shaheen Khan Archie Panjabi
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Craig Pruess

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (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 English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, Behind-the-scenes goofing around in end credits

    One of the more successful films released this year, Bend It Like Beckham is the story of Jesminder Bhamra (Parminder Nagra). Jesminder, or Jess as she is known to everyone apart from her mother, is an eighteen year old English girl of Indian descent who just happens to be obsessed with football and worships the very ground that Manchester United and England superstar David Beckham walks on. Jess has some real talent for the round ball game and can in fact, bend a football like David Beckham can. When she is spotted running the proverbial rings around some lads in the local park by Jules (Kiera Knightley), and invited to join training for her local female team, The Hounslow Harriers, Jess is beside herself. The coach of the team, young hunk Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), also sees some promise in the young Jess and promotes her to the starting line-up. Unfortunately for Jess, her parents are not particularly keen on her playing football and want her to do what is proper for an Indian girl. This includes learning to cook a proper Indian curry, marrying a nice Indian boy, and does most certainly not entail getting hot and sweaty on the football pitch. Her mother (a scene-stealing performance by Shaheen Khan) is particularly concerned that all this football nonsense will get in the way of the preparations for her other daughter, Pinky's (Archie Panjabi), upcoming wedding. But Jess wants to keep playing the game she loves and so deceives her parents to keep playing, and earns her place on the team, playing several games and helping them reach the final. When the big match is scheduled for the same day as Pinky's wedding, Jess has to make a choice about which way she is going to go - to follow her first love or to follow the love and traditional values of her family. Her decision is made all the more difficult when she learns that a scout for a US college will be at the game and is extremely interested in her and Jules' playing ability.

    Bend It Like Beckham joins a bunch of films like East is East and the other low budget smash My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which have in recent times explored the cross-cultural divides so commonly found in our communities and generally made fun of it all. There are plenty of laughs here with all manner of topics the butt of many jokes; Indian culture, English culture and their interpretation of Indian culture, women's football and lesbianism to name a few. While many of the characters are straight out of the How To Make Clichéd Indian Characters Handbook, it is told with such enthusiasm for both the story and the culture that these shortcomings are easily forgiven. This is a feel-good story that will certainly provide an effortless night's entertainment.

Video

    Despite the low budget nature of the film, this is one very fine transfer with superb colour rendition and few problems to report.

    The original theatrical aspect ratio was 1.85:1. We compromise only slightly here with a ratio of 1.78:1 and it comes complete with 16x9 enhancement. A finely detailed and all round sharp transfer, there are absolutely no problems with shadow detail. Thankfully, there is also no dominant grain and no low level noise.

    The colours are gorgeous. They are vivid and vibrant, especially the reds. Jess' Manchester United strip does look a little oversaturated at times, causing some minor posterization, though only marginally. Other than that, all skin tones are natural and the various Indian fashions feature all the colours of the spectrum.

   There are no MPEG artefacts. Film-to-video artefacts are limited to a little shimmering on a couple of surfaces. Probably the most notable case is at 30:30 on the shingle roof of a house. Even this example is barely noticeable and hardly worth mentioning. There are few film artefacts which, given the youth of the material, is as expected. All-up, this is a pretty clean print.

    There are two subtitle options available, these being English and English for the Hearing Impaired. Both are adequate, though presented in a slightly smaller than normal typeface that may prove a little difficult to see for those of you with vision difficulties.

    This is a dual layered disc with RSDL formatting. The layer change is absolutely perfect. At 79:14, the audio falls silent and there is a lengthy fade-to-black between scenes. The layer change has been placed right on this scene transition and was impossible to pick apart from a slight pause in the time display on my DVD player.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are two audio soundtracks on this disc. The main English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is joined by an English Dolby Digital 2.0 commentary track. I listened to both tracks in their entirety.

    The dialogue is clear and concise. Some of the accents are a little difficult to understand and I found I missed a couple of the punch lines as a result. Switching on the subtitles soon sorted that out. There are no audio sync problems.

    There is some really interesting music featured in this film. The songs are a real cross-cultural eclectic mix. Pops songs the ilk of She's a Lady (not the Tom Jones version but it sounds remarkably like him), efforts from a couple of the solo Spice Girls including Victoria Beckham, and the main theme Hot, Hot, Hot. There are also several contemporary songs but performed in their Indian version including The Power Of Love (if you thought the Jennifer Rush or Celine Dion versions were bad, you ain't heard nothing yet!). There are also many traditional Indian songs throughout. These give a real diverse mix that adds some spark to the soundtrack.

    The soundtrack doesn't command a great deal of attention from the surround channels. They spring to life a couple of times during the football games, but with the bulk of the film essentially dialogue comedy, their silence is hardly surprising. Subwoofer use is also restrained. The odd commercial aeroplane flies overhead occasionally. Apart from those instances, and a bit of support given to some of the thumpier songs, the subwoofer is mostly silent.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Main Menu Introduction

    A few highlights of the girls team going through their training drill.

Menu Animation & Audio

Scene Selection Animation & Audio

Featurette-Behind The Scenes

    Running for 15:17 minutes, this is pretty much your standard behind-the-scenes type of thing, though it does offer some frank interviews with many of the cast members. Making a bit of a change is that it is also presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and comes with 16x9 enhancement.

Audio Commentary - Gurinder Chadha (Director) and Paul Mayeda Burges (Co-Writer)

    A commentary best described as enthusiastic. Director Gurinder Chadha is extremely proud of her film and it really shines through in this quite relaxed commentary track recorded with her co-writing collaborator Paul Mayeda Burges. Mostly screen specific, they talk about all manner of topics including casting, the reaction from the Beckhams to the film, and just how many of the director's relatives made it into the film. Entertaining.

Deleted Scenes

    A series of ten deleted scenes, unfortunately presented without any explanation or commentary about their removal. They run for anything from 20 seconds to 4:13 minutes with an average of about 1:30 minutes. These are certainly worth a look. There a couple of quite humorous lines that got the chop.

Featurette - Who Wants To Cook Aloo Gobi?

    Running for 15:01 minutes, this is a Jamie Oliver style segment with director Gurinder Chadha showing you in quite a bit of detail how to cook the traditional Indian dish Aloo Gobi. Gurinder has an exceptionally engaging personality and is quite amusing at times, especially as her mother and aunt are in the kitchen dispensing all manner of good motherly advice. If you don't get all the ingredients down, don't worry as they are all also shown on a notes screen. This featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and 16x9 enhanced.

Music Video

    The song Hot Hot Hot (How Ya Feeling) is played with various images from the film and a fair chunk of behind-the-scenes clowning around. This lasts for 6:17 minutes.

Theatrical Trailer

    There are actually two trailers here played back-to-back  The first runs for 1:55 minutes, the second for 1:22. Both are similar in quality to the main film and are presented in the same aspect ratio of 1.78:1. They are also both 16x9 enhanced and come with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. As usual, a few of the best jokes are spoiled in the trailers, so I recommend that if you haven't seen them, don't bother until after you've watched the film.

Notes - Aloo Gobi Recipe

    The culinary information. For those that missed all the measures and ingredients during the cooking lesson, here are six pages of text detailing the ingredients and method for making the Aloo Gobi curry dish.

    It would appear that this title is yet to be released in Region 1. The Region 2 disc is exactly the same as the Region 4.

    Bend It Like Beckham is a fun film that will warm your heart and give you a laugh or two. Sure, there is a strong reliance on many cultural clichés, but overall the joys of having a relatively unknown cast, obviously directed by someone who is filled with abundant enthusiasm for not only their work but their ancestral culture, make up for any of those shortcomings..

    Despite the low budget nature of the film, the video quality is excellent. Almost no grain, few issues with aliasing and plenty of sharp crisp images. The audio soundtrack won't stretch to demonstration status, but it's a lot of fun, with a very cross-cultural mix of music on offer.

    The extras are also unique, providing an enthusiastic commentary track with a curry recipe and cooking segment. Magic.

    Overall, this is a high quality package that would be a worthwhile addition to anyone's collection.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall