Cat.no: EDV 9030

Cert: 18

Running time: 97 minutes

Year: 1995

Pressing: 1999

Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 12 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)

Languages: English

Subtitles: None

Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: No

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £15.99

Extras : Scene index, trailer, featurette

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Director:

Robert Butler (TV: Lois and Clark, Remington Steele, Star Trek)

Producers:

Martin Ransohoff and David Valdes

Screenplay:

Jonathan Brett

Music:

Shirley Walker

Cast:

Ryan Weaver: Ray Liotta (Cop Land, Field of Dreams, Goodfellas, No Escape, Operation Dumbo Drop, Unforgettable, Unlawful Entry)
Teri Halloran: Lauren Holly (Down Periscope, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, Dumb and Dumber)
Rachel Taper: Rachel Ticotin (Con Air, Critical Condition, Don Juan De Marco, Falling Down, Where The Day Takes You)
Lt. Aldo Hines: Hector Elizondo (Beverly Hills Cop 3, The Burden of Proof, Frankie and Johnny, Getting Even with Dad, Leviathan, Pretty Woman, The Taking of Pelham 123, TV: Chicago Hope)

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It's Christmas time and the US government are transporting a dangerous convicted murderer from A to B via a plane ride. Will they deliver him safely and efficiently, or will they behave in the way all government officials do onscreen and lose complete control of the situation, end up dead at the hands of their own cargo and put the rest of the passengers in danger?

Yes, it doesn't take an Einstein to work that one out and it soon boils down to a cat-and-mouse game between the two leads and in any normal circumstances I know who my money would be on, but this is movieland where the opposite and the obvious should be expected.

In the fight to the death there are plenty of shouting, screaming and the one-liners but only a handful of those seem to work, whereas the rest are everything we've heard before. Hector Elizondo has certainly seen better films and plays the police role wanting to apprehend his bad guy at the end of it. Rachel Ticotin just gets in the way throwing in many a feminist comment, most notably in "correcting" someone that the girl left on board is not a "stewardess" but a "flight attendant". Oh, girl power (!)

The picture is framed in the original widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 and is free of artifacts but sadly is not anamorphic. Compare this to another misfortune - the Region 1 DVD which does have an anamorphic print but is not in the same ratio. Whoever mastered that transfer used the Super 35 technique to open up the picture to a 16:9 ratio, retaining side information while adding top and bottom picture info. The average bitrate is a middling 5.23Mb/s, briefly peaking over 7Mb/s.

Again, the sound is disappointly Dolby Prologic, not Dolby Digital 5.1 like the American release. There are a lot of explosions and action moments to blare out of your speakers, but you'll only hear them if you can stay awake.

Extras :

Chapters :

Languages & Subtitles :

Trailer and featurette :

Menu :

Watching the trailer made this seem like an entertaining thriller, but watching the actual film I realised I'd seen everything before and while it passes nearly a couple of hours but so can sitting on a bus and I know which has better sights on view.

If you are considering the Region 1 DVD, only do so for the better sound quality and not the cocked-up ratio. Its only extras are a trailer and cast biographies.

FILM	 		: *
PICTURE QUALITY 	: ****
SOUND QUALITY		: ****
EXTRAS			: *½
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OVERALL			: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.