Legal Eagles (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	110:51
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (58:15)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Ivan Reitman
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Robert Redford Debra Winger Daryl Hannah Brian Dennehy Terence Stamp Steven Hill
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$36.95	Music	Elmer Bernstein

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.20:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Portuguese Danish Finnish Swedish Norwegian German Dutch Czech Polish Turkish Hungarian Bulgarian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, snippets during end credits

    Unfortunately, Legal Eagles doesn't quite seem to know what type of movie it is and tries to be too many things at once. Some may refer to it as a thriller, others a courtroom drama, others a romantic comedy. Sure, it has elements of all those - in particular the try-hard romantic banter between Redford and Winger harks back to the Hepburn/Tracy era, but it is a weak effort really. It simply doesn't do one thing well enough to classify it into one particular genre.

Video

    Presented in an aspect of 2.20:1, this is different from the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. It is unfortunately not 16x9 enhanced.

    Sharpness varies greatly. It ranges from a glowing softness around each character to a nice level of sharpness which then exposes all of the aliasing problems. The soft images certainly dominate and make this look like a second-rate VHS transfer. Shadow detail is also a big problem. With a reasonable amount of the film occurring in darkness (at least I think it was supposed to be dark), character's faces had a habit of disappearing at times. I actually forgot to look for low level noise (I was having much more fun with the other stuff!). There is plenty of grain present, though it is only noticeable on the backgrounds and doesn't distract from the picture overall (the other problems overshadow it anyway).

    There were no apparent MPEG artefacts. There was a huge moiré effect on the zoomed-in TV screen at 4:50.

    Aliasing is rife. I normally jot down the more severe cases and note the times they occur. I gave up at the eleven minute mark when I had no fewer than ten examples. Without boring you too much, aliasing occurs on almost every venetian blind in every office/house (there are lots of them - they were popular in the 80s), on almost everything that Robert Redford wears (striped shirts and plaid jackets do not go together well - especially when they are shimmering as if he is plugged into a power point), the odd car grille, edges of desks, edges of  benches in the courtroom...you get the idea. Film artefacts were also in plague proportions. The usual mix of white blobs, scratches, what looked like an object on the lens of the camera at 49:13 and a very strange white glow on the bottom of the frame at 54:22-54:34 contributed to the mirth.

    Colours aren't too bad. A lot of browns, beiges, tans, off-whites, and more browns (the usual 80s palette) dominate, so there is little chance for colour bleeding or oversaturation. Skins tones look natural (if Robert Redford's skin could ever be called natural). The flamboyant artwork is nicely rendered with a myriad of colours present. So too are the supposedly real Picassos and other priceless works of art used in the film.

    Numerous subtitle tracks are on offer. The English were the only ones I viewed and they appeared to have no problems.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change occurring at 58:15. Daryl Hannah's character has just knocked on Robert Redford's door and he pauses noticeably before letting her in. Not the best placement, but it is not overly disruptive.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    There are five Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks present, with the surround-encoding flag embedded. These are German, French, Italian, Spanish, and of course English. I listened to the English track and verified the presence of the others.

    Dialogue is usually crisp and clear and dominates through the centre channel. There are no apparent audio sync problems.

    The musical score is by Elmer Bernstein (who has worked with director Ivan Reitman on several of his films), and it is probably the highlight of the movie. Upbeat and funky, it captures the bantering relationship between Logan and Kelly and the quirkiness of the New York art scene quite nicely. It does become a little monotonous towards the end. The song Love Touch by Rod Stewart is the "Hit Single" that is proudly trumpeted on the cover slick. This song (I don't remember it being a hit!) is featured during the end credits.

    There is no surround channel use. Likewise for the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

• Nothing

• Spanish, Italian, French, and German soundtracks
• All subtitles except English

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall