DVDfever.co.uk - Flatliners Blu-ray reviewDVDfever.co.uk - Charts, News and Reviews of Blu-rays, DVDs, Games, CDs, Hardware, Laserdiscs, Cinema Films & more
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Producers:
Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber
Screenplay:
Peter Filardi
Music:
James Newton Howard
Cast :
Nelson: Kiefer Sutherland
Rachel: Julia Roberts
Labraccio: Kevin Bacon
Joe: William Baldwin
Steckle: Oliver Platt
Billy Mahoney: Joshua Rudoy
Winnie Hicks: Kimberly Scott
Rachel's Father: Benjamin Mouton
Anne Coldren: Hope Davis
Rachel's Mother: Elinore O'Connell
Flatliners takes five American medical students one of which wants to see what lies beyond death and then live to tell the tale.
When Nelson achieves his task, three of the remaining four also begin to get ideas above their station. However, as
if bringing someone back from the dead wasn't enough to bring about tension, old feelings and experiences are
reawakened and one by one the students are forced to confront their demons from the past.
Kiefer Sutherland plays Nelson, the first to go under, a man with a clear sense of direction to begin with, even if
he has doubts later on. There's very few films in which I can easily watch Julia Roberts, this being one with
My Best Friend's Wedding,
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and
Notting Hill being the others,
but here she, William Baldwin and Kevin Bacon each have their doubts about effectively killing themselves,
but their curiosity gets the better of them.
Oliver Platt, most recently seen in
2012,
stays wise to the facts by opting not to find fame the easy way and chronicles the events into his dictaphone.
In fact, he makes one of my favourite quotes early on when he expresses disgust at Nelson wanting to 'kill himself',
"I did not come to medical school to murder my classmates, no matter how deranged they might be".
Flatliners is one of the few films that I fell in love with the first time I saw it - and it's still a corker 20 years on,
even if it hasn't got the most coherent of plots. After seeing the film in the cinema, the haunting score by James Newton
Howard over the end credits kept me hankering for a soundtrack CD, but just my luck that a rare thing occurred - a
film without such a CD to accompany its release, even in America and I know as I made several enquiries.
Things went from bad to worse in early 1991 as the retail video release approached and I crossed my fingers that
the unwatchable fullscreen version would be accompanied by a widescreen version, but to no avail, even later when a
PAL Laserdisc was announced since when Joel Schumacher shoots a film in 2.35:1, there's no compromise possible when
it comes to constructing a pan-and-scan image.
By the way, although the above retail prices are given for this title, you can get the Blu-ray from Amazon for under
eight quid and the DVD is about half that.
The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, the only way of doing complete justice to a
Joel Schumacher film, especially one where every frame is a delight and the director of photography is Jan De Bont,
who later went on to direct the actioners Speed,
Speed 2 and
Twister.
I was sceptical at first when I saw a very poor Columbia Tristar logo at the start, but as soon as that's gone, the
print is crystal clear, pin-sharp and glorious. Absolutely flawless. In some cases, it's almost as if the film is
shot in monochrome - not in black-and-white, but with many cool shots bathed in a single incredible colour, while
others have colour to their backdrops but the actors have a monochrome light coming from their faces, such as 66 minutes
in when Bacon and Baldwin discuss how their 'dead' experiences have come back to haunt them, the monochrome faces being
those os Bacon and Platt, standing next to him.
For the record, I'm watching on a Panasonic 37" Plasma screen via a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
The sound is in Dolby Digital 5.1, which even the original DVD release from 1999 did not contain and whether the 2004
catalogue release corrected this is something I doubt. The audio is suitably spooky and really provides what I didn't
even get to hear in the cinema back in 1990.
However, when it comes to the extras, there is one big complaint - there are none. Why not? Even the DVD had a trailer.
The menu mixes in a piece of music from the film with clips of the film.
There are English subtitles plus 14 other languages, but the chaptering is ridiculous with only 16 throughout the 114-minute film.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
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
Blu-ray: 
Flatliners takes five American medical students one of which wants to see what lies beyond death and then live to tell the tale.
The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, the only way of doing complete justice to a
Joel Schumacher film, especially one where every frame is a delight and the director of photography is Jan De Bont,
who later went on to direct the actioners Speed,
