The Boxer: Collector's Edition (1997)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Featurette-Fighting For Peace: Inside The Boxer Audio Commentary-Jim Sheridan (Director) Audio Commentary-Arthur Lappin (Producer) Deleted Scenes Production Notes Biographies-Cast & Crew Theatrical Trailer Alternate Ending
Rating
Year Of Production	1997
Running Time	113:31 (Case: 109)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (63:23)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Jim Sheridan
Studio Distributor	Sony Pictures Home Entertain	Starring	Daniel Day-Lewis Emily Watson Brian Cox Ken Stott Gerard McSorley Kenneth Cranham
Case	Soft Brackley-Transp
RPI	$27.95	Music	Gavin Friday Maurice Seezer

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary 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 Portuguese Danish Finnish Swedish Norwegian German Dutch Czech Polish Turkish Hungarian Bulgarian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is the third collaboration by director Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day-Lewis. The first two efforts were My Left Foot and In The Name of the Father, which means that this movie had a lot to live up to in both quality and storyline. For the most part, it doesn't disappoint. This isn't the simplest of movies to watch in terms of complexity of characters or the undertones that weave throughout this movie in regards to war-torn Belfast during the mid-90s. For most of us, we can only guess at what really happens and what it's like, but some superb performances from a mainly stellar cast, along with a good script help this understanding along nicely.

    Danny Flynn (Daniel Day-Lewis) is released on parole after serving 14 years in jail for a bombing. Now 32 years old, he just wants to lead a normal life back in his own home. He wants no more of the violence that lead to his imprisonment. The trouble is he's still in love with his old girlfriend Maggie (Emily Watson), daughter of the local IRA chieftan Joe (Brian Cox). Maggie also is married with a son, and her husband, Danny's best friend, is in jail, making her a prisoner's wife, something that the IRA have strict rules about fraternising with.

    Danny meets up with his old trainer Ike (Ken Stott) and together they rebuild the old gym where they used to train and begin holding boxing matches again. Danny begins training in earnest to resume his career, and he rekindles his relationship with Maggie. As Danny begins to reacquaint himself with Maggie, he draws attention from Harry (Gerard McSorley) the IRA heavy who recruited him but who now sees him as a threat to the IRA code and wants to be rid of him. Only the intervention of Joe stops Harry from doing anything.

    During all this, there is a ceasefire announced and Joe is trying to get the IRA prisoners currently in custody released. The trouble is, Harry is seeking to undermine Joe by playing on the fact that Danny and Maggie are breaking the very rules Joe instituted about prisoners' wives. Eventually Harry takes matters into his own hands when he believes there is no chance of a prisoner release and orders a car bombing at a fight Danny is having, where a senior police officer is killed, scrapping the ceasefire and directly challenging Joe's authority.

    This is a beautifully shot movie with some very unique backgrounds of Ireland and how it looked. Sheridan draws deeply from his own background in Belfast and is ably assisted by some spectacular looking locations. Possibly not to everyones tastes, nonetheless this is a fascinating study of human character (and little to do with boxing except as a metaphor) of people stuck in a no-win situation and just making do, and of those willing to take a stand and attempt something different. We may never truly understand the horror that was Belfast, but this shows us a small portion of what it must have really been like.

Video

    This is almost a pristine transfer in all respects. There are some minor flaws, most of which are almost invisible unless you are looking for them, and for the most part you will be very pleased watching this as it is a quality presentation.

    The aspect ratio of this disc is listed as 1.66:1 on the packaging which is incorrect. It is correctly presented in 1.85:1 and 16x9 enhanced, the same ratio as the theatrical release.

    Apart from some scenes where edge enhancement is fairly visible, the sharpness of this disc is exemplary. You couldn't call it perfect because there are too many incidences where you can see the outlines clearly (especially in the darker scenes) but I wasn't complaining during my viewing. Shadow detail is excellent without being too generous. The grain was also another pleasing aspect of this transfer. At no stage did it rise beyond very light and was almost invisible for the most part. This made background detail easy to discern and the whole film had a real quality to it. Blacks were noiseless and there were many gradations on offer during the night shots and darker backgrounds.

    The colour had three elements to it. Blues were used to enhance the feeling of cold and dinginess in the surroundings. Richer, warmer hues and colours are offered up in the indoors scenes to simulate warmth and comfort. More realistic and earthy colours are used at other times giving this a stylistic look as well as a huge colour palette on which the director of photography could work. There was some oversaturation in the indoors scenes, often with red becoming pronounced, but it looked intentional rather than as a result of any transfer error.

    The transfer is absolutely wonderful for the most part in the areas of MPEG and film to video artefacts. You may notice the odd speck here and there, mostly white, but apart from the opening and closing minute these were so few and far between they weren't worthy of mention. MPEG artefacts were unnoticable and apart from the opening and closing credits there were only a couple of minor film-to-video effects noted. At 17:39 there was some noticable aliasing on a truck grill, at 53:19 there was a noticable moiré effect on a TV screen and every time Daniel Day-Lewis appeared onscreen wearing a particular cross-patterned jumper there are some interesting 'ringing' (moiré) effects noticed. Occasionally your eye might also notice some minor jerking during rapid movements, but these didn't appear to be a transfer error and only occured rarely.

    Given the colour scheme, the subtitles are easily readable against all backgrounds and very true to the movie. The font used was excellent, and although they are located in the bottom quarter of the screen, don't pose a problem with the flow of the movie. For the most part they are accurate, even to spelling with the spoken word.

    The RSDL layer change occurs at 63:23 and is so quick I missed it the first time through. It occurs mid-scene, but just as you cut from Emily Watson to Brian Cox. It lasts barely a tenth of a second and it's gone. Almost invisible, which was good to see.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    This disc offers you a nice selection of audio tracks to chose from. For the vast majority of us, the English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack at the reasonable bitrate of 384 kilobits per second will be the only choice, but you also have a French Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack at the same bitrate if you are so inclined. Also included are three Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks at 192 kilobits per second in German, Italian and Spanish. There are also two commentary tracks, also in Dolby Digital 2.0 at 192 kilobits per second. Each of these five options are surround encoded.

    With actors of this quality, clarity of the dialogue was never an issue. The audio sync didn't appear to have any major issues with it.

    The music is credited to Gavin Friday (who also worked on In The Name Of The Father with Sheridan) and Maurice Seezer. The music itself is an interesting mix of orchestral and some incidental music. As is usual there are large slices where the actors' dialogue or special effects are allowed to dominate the soundstage and for the most part the music is fairly subdued. Still, it was a decent effort without being highly memorable, but very much in keeping with this type of movie.

    Although in use during much of the movie to support the music, there isn't a lot of body added by the surrounds which is a bit of a pity. Easily the most fruitful part they play is in the sound effects area, supporting overhead helicopters and cars passing by and adding fullness to the various explosion and other incidents during the movie. Given the mostly dialogue-driven script, extensive use wasn't called for, for the most part. Naturally the opening and closing title tracks saw the most satifying use of the surrounds, offering a slightly fuller envelope to the music but rarely standing out on their own.

    The .1 channel was only minimally utilised. There is little to get excited about apart from some light subterranean elements added to the music and a couple of muffled thuds during the explosions. The good news is that the general quality of the sound isn't diminished by the lack of the LFE so don't get too concerned.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Featurette

Audio Commentary

Audio Commentary

Deleted Scenes

Production Notes

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Biographies for Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Ken Stott, Gerard McSorley, Kenneth Cranham and Jim Sheridan.

Theatrical Trailer

Alternate Ending

    There appear to be two versions of The Boxer available to Region 1 buyers. There is the Special Edition and a DTS version. They both appear to have been framed in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1 vs the Region 4's 1.85:1, although there didn't appear to be too much concern in various reviews about any cropping in evidence. They also appear to miss out on the various soundtracks (French Dolby Digital 5.1, and the German/Spanish/Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 optional tracks). Also, subtitles in English and Spanish only are offered.

    Apart from the DTS offering, they appear to all have the same superb video and audio offerings, with the same extras package. Given this, and unless you are attracted strongly to DTS versions, then the Region 4 disc would appear to be the best value given the $27.99 price tag I've seen it for and the superiority of the PAL encoding over NTSC.

    An excellent movie, although not in the class of Sheridan's other offerings, it nonetheless doesn't diminish his reputation as a director of quality and note. For many watching this movie you may find it a bit of a struggle. It isn't your standard fare, which made it more interesting for me.

    A video that is pure quality with only minor blemishes to keep this from getting 5 stars.

    An adequate audio track to accompany the video that will not blow your socks off but won't disappoint too much either.

    An extras package that has some decent quality to it at last. The usual mulch of trailer/production notes and biographies are augmented by two decent audio commentaries, deleted scenes and a documentary making this a good package overall.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall