Where the Money Is (2000)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Theatrical Trailer Dolby Digital Trailer-Egypt
Rating
Year Of Production	2000
Running Time	84:47 (Case: 88)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Marek Kanievska
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Paul Newman Linda Fiorentino Dermot Mulroney
Case	C-Button-Version 2
RPI	$34.95	Music	Mark Isham

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/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 for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Where The Money Is was a surprise. I wasn't sure quite what to expect of a 1999 Paul Newman movie. The title made me wonder if it had something to do with one of Newman's classics: The Colour of Money. I can tell you definitively: there are no pool tables in this movie.

    Paul Newman plays a convicted bank robber (Henry). Linda Fiorentino plays a nurse (Carol). Because of a dearth of beds in prison hospitals, Henry is transferred to a nursing home. He is thought to have suffered a stroke, but Carol is unconvinced of this - she believes him to be feigning the illness. The ways she tries to get him to respond make me question the PG rating. She isn't sure why she wants him to be alert, at first. She is dissatisfied with her life, but doesn't know what to do. She's dissatisfied with her husband (Dermot Mulroney), too.

    She suspects that Henry has loads of money stashed away somewhere - maybe that's part of her motivation. Or maybe it's just that she doesn't like the idea of being fooled. She finds herself quite interested in him. I loved the story of how he got caught. He was inside a bank vault when the power blacked out, the generator came on, and the door closed - they found him inside the following day.

    I won't tell you what happens - you'll want to see for yourself.

Video

    This film is presented in an aspect ratio of about 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The cover claims an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, which was the theatrical ratio.

    The picture is fairly sharp, but falls short of perfection. Shadow detail is excellent. There's no low level noise. The backgrounds are sometimes grainy, but I'm certain that was deliberate, focussing attention on the foregrounds. There are a couple of shots which look edge-enhanced, but I think it is actually back-lighting.

    Colour is excellent. The opening scene is in black and white, but the rest of the film shows nicely saturated colours when they are present.

    There's not much in the way of artefacts - a little aliasing, a few film artefacts. There's a visible white blob at 47:40, but apart from that about the only really noticeable artefact is some serious film grain at around 59:50 - even that is not especially troublesome. I was impressed to see that the final credits roll without showing any artefacts.

    The only subtitles are English for the Hard of Hearing. They are quite accurate, and include incidental sounds and even the words to the songs. They are placed according to the speaker, which is becoming quite common - I like it. The font is clear and easy to read.

    The disc is single-sided, single-layer. With nothing but a trailer and a movie which is only 85 minutes long, the single layer is plenty.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The solitary soundtrack is English Dolby Digital 5.1.

    Dialogue is clear. There are a couple of snide comments that come across well - I liked "it says you're not supposed to immerse it in water" (you'll see).

    The score is excellent. It includes some marvellous low bass and good surround ambience. This soundtrack is 5.1 with good reason. It comes across OK on a TV, but sounds much better in 5.1.

    The surrounds and subwoofer are used almost exclusively by the score (there's not a lot in the way of explosions or other sound effects), but they are used well.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    The cover is honest: it lists "Bonus features on this DVD: Theatrical Trailer" - that's it.

Menu

    The menu is static and silent.

Theatrical Trailer (2:15)

    This trailer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

    The R1 disc has biographies, production notes, and Web links, but I don't value any of those highly. I'd call it pretty much even.

    Where The Money Is is a good movie, done well on a bare-bones DVD.

    The video quality is good.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    The extras are minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall