Turner & Hooch

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	None
Rating
Year Released	1989
Running Time	95:29 minutes
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	2,4	Director	Roger Spottiswoode
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Tom Hanks Mare Winningham Craig T. Nelson Reginald VelJohnson
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$36.95	Music	Charles Gross

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.80:1 (measured)
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	No
Subtitles	English Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, during credits

    Scott Turner (Tom Hanks) is a small town detective on the verge of moving to the big smoke, when things start to happen in the small town. After a spate of misdemeanours, and very very few felonies, the town of Cypress Beach is hit by a biggie of a felony - the murder of a local harbour-side character. The only problem is that the one witness to the murder is a junkyard dog by the name of Hooch. Now Hooch is your fairly typical Dogue de Bordeaux (that's the breed of dog), with a mean streak in him a mile wide and all the social graces of a pig in muck. Having lost his owner, Hooch has to be found a new home - which of course means moving in with Scott, at least according to local vet and love interest Emily Carson (Mare Winningham). Anyone who has owned a large dog knows that when they get bored, they get very playful, and will destroy anything of value and use in a house in a very short time. Scott learns this the hard way, as his rather compulsively neat ways go out the window under the attack of Hooch's playfulness. Hooch has to be protected until the murderer can be identified, and we enjoy some playfully derivative romps until the film reaches its inevitable conclusion.

    Yes, I know this is not great cinema but it is at least mildly entertaining in that wonderfully derivative way so utterly par for the course from this source. Even back in films of this era, you can at least see that Tom Hanks has some sort of acting ability, and in many ways this is well-suited to his talents at the time. The rest of the cast is a typical by-the-numbers selection who at least put up enough of a performance to flesh out the balance of the rather underdeveloped characters here. The whole thing is woven together by Roger Spottiswoode whose chief claim to fame is Tomorrow Never Dies - an obvious highlight in a generally mediocre body of work. Turner & Hooch is not great artistically, but is an enjoyable enough romp that manages to raise a couple of laughs.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.80:1, which is very close to the theatrical ratio of 1.85:1. The main insult is the fact that the transfer is not 16x9 enhanced: this is an unacceptable state of affairs I am afraid, as anyone who has or intends to buy a widescreen television will find this a very problematic DVD to view.

    The whole transfer just smacks of mediocrity: sharpness is average, detail is average, shadow detail is average, clarity is average. There is little here to get at all enthused about. There did not seem to be any really significant problem with grain in the transfer, although it was a little bit prevalent throughout the film. There did not seem to be any real problem with low level noise in the transfer at all.

    The overall tone of the transfer here is quite dark and therefore there is no great vibrancy of colour on offer here. It is not an especially natural-looking transfer, although this is a problem that also afflicts the VHS tape and therefore may reflect the way the film was shot rather than a mastering problem. If it were an artistic choice, it was not a good one. There is nothing approaching oversaturation here and colour bleed is not an issue.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There was a consistent problem with aliasing throughout the transfer and on a widescreen television this is not going to look at all good. There are no particular problems with film artefacts here, although obviously they are present.

    Despite what the packaging may state, this is not an RSDL formatted DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    Dialogue is clear and easy to understand throughout.

    There did not appear to be any problems with audio sync in the transfer.

    The musical score comes from Charles Gross, and a thoroughly unmemorable effort it is, too.

    There is not much of an audio demonstration going on here at all and at best this is another mildly serviceable soundtrack from Buena Vista. It is sad that they seem determined to be the masters of mediocrity, and at some time I really think we have to question whether their contributions to Region 4 DVD are really needed. There are no major flaws as far as distortion or congestion are concerned, but really there is little here that is anything approaching distinctive. Surround channel use is not especially wonderful and the whole soundscape is serviceably frontal. There is no bass channel use here at all.
 
 

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

    A mediocre video transfer.

    A mediocre audio transfer.

    A non-existent extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
17th September 2000