The Dirty Harry Collection (1971)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

    The Dirty Harry Collection is, as its name suggests, a complete collection of all five Dirty Harry movies; Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool. All of these DVDs have been previously released individually, and this box set simply combines all of them into a single, coherent box set.

    The box set itself warrants specific mention, as its gatefold presentation is, to say the very least, most unusual. Unlike most gatefold packages, which fold out flat, this gatefold folds out flat and then an additional flap folds down at the right of the package, containing the perfunctory booklet which merely replicates the back covers and chapter listings of the previously-released DVDs. What is unusual about this gatefold is that Dirty Harry's gun, a Magnum .44, is printed on its inside - an extremely impressive effort from a presentation point of view (it's a REALLY big gun), but incredibly fragile in terms of long-term durability. Handle this packaging with extreme care!

    At $99.95 for over 500 minutes worth of Dirty Harry, this package represents a substantial saving over purchasing these titles individually (5 x $34.95 = $174.75), so is well worth it if you are a Dirty Harry fan and don't already own all the movies in this collection.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Dirty Harry (Remastered) (1971)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette-Dirty Harry's Way Featurette-Dirty Harry: The Original Interviews-Cast & Crew-10 Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1971
Running Time	98:18
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:10)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Don Siegel
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Harry Guardino Rene Santoni Andy Robinson John Vernon John Larch
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German Romanian Bulgarian English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The original disc was not too bad, all things considered. The movie was made in 1971, so it's 30 years old. Normally I'd expect that to mean that we get lots of  film artefacts, somewhat washed-out colours, and so-so sound. The original disc was better than that. This remastering is rather better again. And they've added some good extras to the disc.

    This was the first movie of its kind, and it had a dramatic impact. It invented a new kind of police hero, and a new genre of police thrillers. So successful was the original that it spawned four sequels - kinda funny for a film that ends in the way that this one does...

    When I first got a DVD player, I made a list of the movies I wanted to collect. The Dirty Harry series was high on that list. When the original version of this disc came out I leapt at it, and was not overly disappointed. Alright, I was a little disappointed. Since then, I've been waiting for the remainder of the films to be released. The wait is over: all of them are being released together. In Region 1 they are being released as a box set. Here they aren't, but that's OK - it means you can buy them gradually, rather than having to front up with all the money at once.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The image is razor-sharp, with slightly reduced shadow detail. There is no low level noise. The night-time scenes, which are plentiful, have a lot of unrelieved black, but that is OK, as that is true to the source material.

    Colour is surprisingly good for an early 70s film. Many films of this era show faded colour. This one does not. Greens and blues come up well. Reds are nearly as good - blood is very bright red. A lot of the colour looks a little drab, but that is production design rather than a failing in the rendering. For a simple example, look at the yellow swimsuit that appears in the opening scene - bright and colourful.

    The transfer is excellent, but the movie is 30 years old. So it is inevitable that we get a few film artefacts. They are most noticeable on shots with a lot of sky - they show up strongly against the sky. Aliasing is prevalent, and I'd attribute that to the sharpness of the transfer - if they'd backed off the sharpness a little they may have reduced the aliasing. There is some minor noise on backgrounds, but that is almost unavoidable with MPEG encoding. There are no obvious MPEG errors. 

    The subtitles are fine. They're white with a black border, in a simple sans serif font, placed over the bottom of the picture. They are accurate enough, and well-timed.

    The disc is single-sided, dual-layer, formatted as RSDL. The layer change is at 64:10. It is placed on a still shot with nobody in view - not easy to see.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    We get a choice of soundtracks; English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital mono at 192 kbps.

    The dialogue is clear and understandable. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is a classic Lalo Schifrin effort. Very 70s, and that's exactly what it should be. It is not as memorable as the music from Shaft, but it fits well.

    The surrounds don't get a lot of use, although they had fun with the helicopter in the scene where the helicopter spots Scorpio on the rooftop (why is it always helicopters?). The subwoofer isn't used heavily, but it does get some exercise.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The original R1 disc had extras, but they were all text-based, to fit them onto a single layer with the film. The original R4 had no extras at all. The extras on this disc are mostly video, because of the extra space afforded by an RSDL disc.

Menu

    The main menu is static, with music. It is much more attractive than the previous menu.

Cast and Crew

    A simple list of the main players, nothing more.

Original Documentary - Dirty Harry's Way (6:48)

    A short featurette about the movie - an extended trailer, of the sort they used to have prior to the development of the "making of". It includes segments from the film, but they are horribly grainy and scratchy.

New Documentary - Dirty Harry: The Original (29:45)

    A documentary made last year, it covers the entire series of Dirty Harry movies, with some emphasis on the first one. It is presented by Robert Urich, and features interviews with a lot of people, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. It makes some interesting points about the influence of Dirty Harry on films that followed.

Interview Gallery

    This is a list of interviews with ten people (all of whom feature in the new documentary - they clearly shot both at the same time). The interviewees are:

• Clint Eastwood (5:38)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger (3:03) - admires Eastwood and Dirty Harry
• Robert Urich (2:41) - was in Magnum Force
• Patty Clarkson (2:05) - was in Dead Pool
• Andy Robinson (2:04)
• Evan Kim (2:09) - one of Harry's partners
• Hal Holbrook (0:44) - was in Magnum Force
• John Milius (3:45) - wrote the script to Magnum Force
• Ted Post (1:41) - directed Magnum Force
• Joel Cox (3:34) - edited / co-edited many Eastwood films

Trailer (3:20)

    A trailer presented in about 1.85:1 and not 16x9 enhanced. Has a memorable comment, saying that Dirty Harry is a movie about two killers - the one with a badge is Harry. 

    The original R1 was a doubled-sided disc (pan-and-scan on one side, wide screen on the other), cramming the movie and text-based extras onto a single layer. The original R4 was a single-sided, single layer disc - like having the widescreen side of the R1, but without the extras (because of the extra space occupied by PAL instead of NTSC). The remastered R1 is not yet available (it gets released on the 12th of November 2001). This new R4 offers a significantly better transfer, good extras, and the luxury of spreading the movie across two layers. I'm guessing that the new R1 will be similar.

    This is a very good remastering of an influential film - this is the version I want to collect.

    The video quality is very good, especially considering the age of the film.

    The audio quality is good, but doesn't really take advantage of the 5.1 mix. That's OK - the original soundtrack was mono.

    The extras are good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Magnum Force (1973)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette-The Hero Cop-Yesterday And Today Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1973
Running Time	117:33
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (75:24)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ted Post
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Hal Holbrook Tim Mathison David Soul Robert Urich Kip Niven Mitchell Ryan
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Magnum Force is about a motorcycle cop killing off high-profile criminals - we see that it's a motorcycle cop from the beginning, but Harry doesn't find out for a while. We get to see a bit of Harry's home life in this movie, not that there's a lot to his home life. And he gets to meet some of his neighbours, including the attractive young lady downstairs. We get to see Harry competing in the police combat shooting competition (he's the reigning champion, unsurprisingly).

    You know, I thought every Dirty Harry movie had a tagline. The first one had "Do you feel lucky?". I was surprised to find that there's no such tagline in Magnum Force. The closest we get is Harry saying "a man has to know his limitations"; but it isn't the same without him pointing his gun at a crook.

    There are definite elements to each Dirty Harry movie, however. Early in the movie, Harry stumbles into a crime being committed, and deals with things in his own inimitable way. His partner is always a representative of a minority; in this case an African-American. Before the movie is over, Harry will have mouthed off to authority, fired several shots, been shot at repeatedly, and will have solved the case in an unconventional way. And Albert Popwell will have a small part; in this movie he's a big-time pimp (he was the target of "do you feel lucky, punk?" in Dirty Harry, he's the leader of a sect in The Enforcer, and Harry's colleague in Sudden Impact).

    It wasn't until I saw this movie again that I noticed how closely the theme to Gunsmith Cats (review here) resembles the theme to Magnum Force. That's probably deliberate.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The image is fairly sharp. Shadow detail is limited, with a fair bit of unrelieved black, especially in night-time scenes. There's absolutely no low-level noise, though.

    Colour is excellent. Bright, fully saturated colours appear without over-saturation or colour bleed. Much of the colour palette is a little drab, however, to imply the sordidness of Harry's working life.

    There are almost no few film artefacts, which is amazing for a film this old. The real problem is aliasing - there is noticeable aliasing on every car grille, every car door, Venetian blinds - every possible place; there's even moire on the walls of the shooting range - it's continual, but it never gets above noticeable to irritating. There is some shimmer in backgrounds, too, but it's fairly minor. There's nothing particular in the way of MPEG artefacts. There's a little bit of telecine wobble on the credits, but I suspect that may be inherent in the source material.

    The subtitles are fine. They're white with a black border, in a simple sans serif font, placed over the bottom of the picture. They are accurate enough, and well-timed. There are lots of gaps without any dialogue, so don't worry if you don't see any subtitles for a while.

    The disc is single-sided and dual-layered, formatted as RSDL. The layer change is at 74:24. It is placed at a cut from a black night-time scene to a door just before it opens. With no sound at the time, the layer change is invisible - nice work.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    We get three soundtracks: English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital mono at 192 kbps. Exactly the same as Dirty Harry - they have been consistent on this.

    The dialogue is clear and mostly understandable, even with the variety of accents. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is another Lalo Schifrin. It's not the same as Dirty Harry, but definitely related. It's not deathless, but it does the job.

    The surrounds are used nicely on some effects, but they don't get a lot of use. The subwoofer is the same - there's not a huge amount of lower octave.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The main menu is static, with music. It is very plain, and not awfully pretty, but it's functional.

Cast and Crew

    A simple list of the main players, nothing more.

Featurette: The Hero Cop - Yesterday and Today (8:04)

    Basically an extended trailer, but it is of dreadful quality. Limited historical interest.

Trailer (2:16)

    The trailer is presented in about 1.78:1. It is reasonable quality. 

    This movie has not been previously released in R1; it is being released as part of the Dirty Harry box set on 20 November 2001. The features sound like they will be the same.

    Magnum Force is a rather good DVD of a classic Dirty Harry movie.

    The video quality is quite good, considering the age of the film, except for the aliasing.

    The audio quality is good, but doesn't really take advantage of the 5.1 mix. The original soundtrack was mono.

    The extras are rudimentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

The Enforcer (1976)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette-Harry Callahan/Clint Eastwood: Something Special In Films Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1976
Running Time	92:38
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (33:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	James Fargo
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Tyne Daly Harry Guardino Bradford Dillman John Mitchum DeVeren BookWalter John Crawford
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Jerry Fielding

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    They have introduced a few twists on regular Dirty Harry elements. For one thing, one of Harry's partners isn't killed until after he and Harry are split up.

    This is another Dirty Harry movie without a tagline. The closest we get is Harry saying "Marvellous" occasionally. 

    This movie drives home how much things have changed since this movie was made. The cars are a bit old-fashioned, but that's nothing special. Most of the police carry revolvers. Women's Liberation is at its height. But perhaps the most obvious difference is mobile phones - Harry calls in from public phones. It's also clear that the disposable shoulder-fired rocket was a brand-new thing - the film-makers have to demonstrate it for us, so we understand it. The moment they do, we know that Harry will end up using one as an accessory to his hand cannon. There's another thing that's dated - Alcatraz was apparently not a tourist attraction at the time.

    Harry Callahan is always unconventional. His idea of hostage negotiations is novel, as is his way of interviewing candidates for police inspector (the San Francisco Police Department's term for detective - their inspectors are rather lower in rank than ours). After expressing his doubts over the fitness of women as police inspectors in the field it is somewhat fitting that Harry ends up with a female partner (Tyne Daly, of Cagney and Lacey fame).

    There was one scene that showed a distinct lack of attention to detail. They are in an armoury, with guns, ammunition, and explosives all around, and they are firing guns at one another - I was waiting for an explosion, but none came.

    There's one instance of gratuitous nudity as Harry chases a suspect through a house where they're filming what looks like a porn movie. Can't see what the point of this was.

    Albert Popwell's role in this movie is as Mustapha, leader of a black militant group called Uhuru. I like playing "Find Albert" in Dirty Harry movies - he gets a different role every time.

    I do wish they'd get the spelling of Callahan consistent - it's Callahan in the subtitles and extras, but Calahan in the credits.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced. Just as it was made.

    The image is quite sharp. Shadow detail is limited, with a fair bit of unrelieved black, especially in night-time scenes - most of this movie takes place during the day, though. There is no low-level noise to be seen, which is nice.

    Colour is solid, although flesh tones looked a touch orange at times. There was no sign of oversaturation or colour bleed.

    There are very few film artefacts; see 19:20 for about the only instance. There is a little bit of shimmer, but a whole heap of aliasing on car doors, grilles, and Harry's jacket - perhaps it might have been better to make the transfer a little less sharp, to reduce the aliasing.

    The subtitles are easy to read, in white with a black border. They are presented with a simple sans-serif font, located over the bottom of the picture (rather than under it). I spotted one error: there's a reference to a knife which is subtitled as a "boy", when the speaker clearly says "Bowie", as in "Bowie knife".

    The disc is single-sided and dual-layered, formatted as RSDL. The layer change is barely noticeable at 33:44, in a scene change. It is not quite as well hidden as the layer change in Magnum Force, but it's perfectly acceptable.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Once again we get three soundtracks: English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital mono soundtracks at 192 kbps. Looks like they've standardised the languages for all of the Dirty Harry movies.

    The dialogue is clear and comprehensible. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is by Jerry Fielding. Quite a change from Lalo Schifrin, who scored the first two Dirty Harry movies. The score is a bit sparse, with lots of stretches without any music, but it does cover all of the action sequences.

    The surrounds are used nicely on occasions, but they're not heavily used. The subwoofer is the same - not a huge amount of low bass.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    The main menu is static, with music over the main menu. It is a plain photo, but it's functional.

Cast and Crew

    Nothing more than a one page list of the main players.

Featurette: Harry Callahan / Clint Eastwood - Something Special in Films (6:01)

    Another extended trailer, with pretensions to covering all the Dirty Harry films. The excerpts from the film are very grainy.

Trailer (2:12)

    A trailer presented in about 2.35:1. Nothing special. 

    This movie has not been previously released in R1. It is being released as part of the Dirty Harry box set, on 20 November 2001. The features sound like they will be the same.

    The Enforcer is a reasonable DVD of a decent-enough movie - not the best Dirty Harry, but OK.

    The video quality is quite good, except for a large amount of aliasing.

    The audio quality is good, but doesn't really take advantage of the 5.1 mix. The original soundtrack was mono.

    The extras are rather basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Sudden Impact (1983)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1983
Running Time	112:21
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (57:09)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Clint Eastwood
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Sondra Locke Pat Hingle Bradford Dillman Paul Drake Audrie Neenan Jack Thibeau Michael Currie Albert Popwell Mark Keyloun
Case	?
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is perhaps the weakest of the Dirty Harry movies, partly because it includes Sondra Locke. She's a painter and merry-go-round restorer who goes on a killing spree in revenge for the gang rape of her and her sister - I'm not giving much away because we get to see all of her killings. We're not spared the gang rape either - a nasty and overlong flashback. Add in a psychotic killer (or should that be a second one?), a very poor depiction of a lesbian (why would she hang around with a bunch of red-neck guys?), some unrealistic behaviour from a small-town police chief (Pat Hingle tries very hard to sell the character, but he fails), and you have all the elements you need for a weak script.

    There are some nice bits: I do like Harry's way of handling a robbery in a coffee shop (beats Pulp Fiction), and this is the movie where he utters those immortal words: "Make my day", and "You're a legend in your own mind".

    The essence of the story is that Harry is sent away from San Francisco to San Paulo to investigate the background to a homicide because he's made himself a target for assassination by giving a mob boss a heart-attack at a wedding. As you'd expect, a simple background investigation becomes something much larger with Harry involved.

    Early in the film we're introduced to Harry's new toy - a .44 magnum automatic - another hand-cannon even more intimidating that the .44 magnum revolver Harry carries on duty.

    For those of us tracking Albert Popwell, in this movie he's Horace, a colleague of Harry's, one of the ones who likes Harry. He even gives Harry a dog.

    Even a weakly-scripted Dirty Harry movie is worth seeing. I have to suggest you get the others first, because they're better films, but this one is not a complete waste of time.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is sharp and clear. Shadow detail is limited, especially in low light, resulting in quite a lot of plain black. Night-time scenes look like they came from the first season of Buffy, with a mostly black shot punctuated with a few visible elements. Daytime scenes are nicely detailed, though. There's no low level noise.

    Colour, especially in daylight, is solid and well-saturated; there is no oversaturation or colour bleed to be seen.

    There is a whole heap of shimmer, which isn't helped by the clothing choices - lots of plaid and tweedy fabrics. And there's aliasing in almost every shot: car grilles and door frames, window treatments, even road markings; it is omnipresent, but never hugely objectionable. There are one or two tiny film artefacts, but they're completely negligible. 

    The subtitles are easy to read, in white with a black border. They are rendered with a simple sans-serif font, located over the bottom of the picture (rather than under it). They are definitely subtitles, rather than captions, because they don't cover the sound effects.

    The disc is single-sided and dual-layered, formatted as RSDL. The layer change at 57:09 is placed at a scene change, and is not noticeable on some players. On others it is barely noticeable. Nice work, but not the best I've ever seen. I do like the way that they're getting better and better at hiding the layer change, though.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Every Dirty Harry movie is the same; we get three soundtracks: English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital mono at 192 kbps.

    The dialogue is clear and easily understood. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is by Lalo Schifrin. After trying Jerry Fielding for The Enforcer they went back to Schifrin again. It means that the soundtrack is what we expect for a Dirty Harry movie.

    The surrounds are used well for gunfire, but that's about all the use they get. The subwoofer is not noticeable. Considering that the original soundtrack was mono, that's not too bad.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    It seems like each movie in the series gets fewer extras.

Menu

    The menus are static, with sound over the main menu. It is a plain photo, but it's functional. They've done one slightly unusual thing - the menu is arranged horizontally, with the choices as vertical bars.

Cast and Crew

    A one-page list of the main players.

Trailer (1:24)

    A trailer presented in anamorphic 2.35:1. Emphasises "Go ahead, make my day". 

    This movie has not been previously released in R1; it is being released as part of the Dirty Harry box set, on 20 November 2001. The features sound like they will be the same.

    Sudden Impact is the weakest Dirty Harry movie, presented on a reasonable DVD with quite a bit of aliasing and shimmer.

    The video quality is very good, except for the aliasing and shimmer.

    The audio quality is good, but doesn't really use the 5.1 mix. The original soundtrack was mono.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Dead Pool (1988)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew-1 page Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	87:28
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Buddy Van Horn
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Clint Eastwood Evan Kim Patricia Clarkson Liam Neeson James Carrey David Hunt
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Lalo Schifrin

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese German English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    The movie does have some redeeming features: we get to see early roles for Jim Carrey (he is billed as James Carrey) - he plays a drug-using rock star (voiced by Guns'n'Roses) - and Liam Neeson - he's Peter Swan, the director of a music video / movie.

    This time Harry's new partner is a Chinese/American (maybe one of the reasons this is the last Dirty Harry is because they ran out of minorities?) Al Quan (Evan Kim).

    There are two central threads to this movie: the dead pool, and Dirty Harry's relationship with the media. The dead pool is a macabre game, in which each participant selects a list of celebrities who may die before the year's end - the winner has the greatest number of dead celebrities. Harry's interaction with the media has rarely been calm. In this case, the media, as personified by Patricia Clarkson, playing Samantha Walker (that name's been used more than once...), manipulates the circumstances to get Harry out to dinner.

    There are additional complications - Harry has just put a mob boss (Lou Janero) in prison. Janero is not happy, and he sends killers after Harry, until Harry comes up with a novel solution to this problem. Harry's solution is amusing.

    There's less plot to this movie than previous Dirty Harry movies - it's less satisfying.

    In passing, I would like to mention that I've finally had a chance to see the artwork for the recent releases of Clint Eastwood movies: they've done a nice job of tying all the movies together, while preserving the original art. If you collect these movies, they'll look good sitting together on the shelf. And it's not just the Dirty Harry movies, either - a number of others have been released in matching covers.

Video

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced. That's the original aspect ratio.

    The image is fairly sharp, with adequate shadow detail. There is no low level visible noise. The night-time scenes are somewhat grainier, but that's inherent in the source material.

    Colour is strong and fully saturated. There's no colour bleed.

    There are no visible film artefacts, but there are frequent traces of aliasing, and a moment or two of moire. There are no MPEG artefacts - that's good.

    The subtitles are attractive, in white with a black border. They are accurate enough, and well-timed.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered, so there's no layer change. Amusingly, the cover reads "SINGLE-LAYER FORMAT. Layer transition may trigger a slight pause" - that's perfectly true, but a bit misleading.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    We get the same choice of soundtracks as on all the other Dirty Harry movies: English, French, and Italian. The English soundtrack is Dolby Digital 5.1 at 384 kbps - that's what I listened to. The other two soundtracks are Dolby Digital stereo, surround encoded.

    The dialogue is clear and understandable. There are no visible audio sync problems.

    The score is more Lalo Schifrin. Standard for a Dirty Harry movie.

    The surrounds are used nicely for ambience. They get some of the score, too, but it is the ambient sounds that show real artistry. The subwoofer never draws attention to itself, but it works in well.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    This disc has the fewest extras of any of the Dirty Harry movies.

Menu

    The main menu is static, with music. It is much like all the other Dirty Harry menus.

Cast and Crew

    A simple list of the main players, nothing more.

Trailer (1:26)

    A trailer presented in about 1.85:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The Region 4 version is missing:

• Behind the Scenes (2 pages of text)
• On Location (2 pages of text)
• Memorable Lines (1 page of text)
• snapper case

    The Region 1 version is missing:

• transparent Amaray case

    That makes me lean towards the Region 4 version already (I detest snapper cases). Add in the fact that both versions have pretty much equivalent transfers, except that the R1 is NTSC and the R4 is PAL, and I favour the Region 4.

    This is a good presentation on DVD of a reasonable movie.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is fine.

    The extras are basic.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall