The average bitrate is a very good 7.70Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound also shares a problem with the other titles in that while being filmed with a
Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, it's merely represented in DD2.0 which translates to
Dolby Surround or ProLogic given the particular amplifier in use. I have to ask why,
since Surround/Prologic-only is nothing but a backward step.
There's not much to make your speakers pull their weight, but there are some
good tunes to be heard on the soundtrack, the best ones coming from :
Blondie (One Way or Another and Heart of Glass),
Neil Diamond (Love on the Rocks),
The Spinners (Working My Way Back To You),
ELO (Don't Bring Me Down),
Bobby Caldwell (What You Won't Do For Love),
The Trammps (Disco Inferno) and the brilliant
The Alan Parsons Project (What Goes Up) on the car radio in chapter 10.
Extras :
Chapters & Trailer :
Who's responsible for the chaptering at EiV ? The Region 1 DVD contained 35, but here
we are only given 12 chapters to cover the 121 minutes of film. The original theatrical
trailer is also included but exhibits the 'stuttering' problems as explained in the
featurette.
Languages & Subtitles :
Just one language for this disc - English in Dolby Surround - but no subtitles,
despite what the back-cover of the box declares!
'Making of' featurette :
A seven-minute 'making of' gives a brief piece of background info on the real story,
with chat from Depp and director Mike Newell. This extended trailer tends to
stutter on my DVD-ROM player (Creative Encore Dxr2), whereas I had no such problems
with the film itself.
Menu :
The menu is static and silent with a just a picture of the two leads to take your mind
off its simplicity.
On inserting the disc, you see the copyright info and the Entertainment In Video
logo and then the film begins without accessing the main menu first. If you go to
the menu, clicking on "Play Movie" brings up the EiV logo and then the film starts.
For some reason, the EiV logo shimmers like crazy and gives you a headache if you look
at it for its full duration.
The problem with this film is that you keep waiting for it to take off and it never does.
A film like Goodfellas has a first-rate cast, but contains things lacking in Donnie
Brasco such as the raw power of the characters portrayed, not to mention the emotion
as things go wrong for them but the same chemistry is severely lacking here.
Donnie Brasco may be based on a true story, but it plays like a very average
cop-planted-amongst-villains-who-don't-know-who-he-is-until-it's-too-late film.
Compared to the American release - subtitles, an anamorphic print, a Dolby Digital 5.1
soundtrack and an abundance of chapters are what's missing from this release so only buy
this release if none of those things are important to you now or in the future.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
