Extras : Scene index, Theatrical Trailer, Peter Weir Interview
Director:
Peter Weir
(The Cars That Ate Paris, Dead Poets Society, Fearless, Gallipoli, Green Card, The Mosquito Coast, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Truman Show, Witness, The Year of Living Dangerously)
Producer:
Edward S. Feldman
Screenplay:
Earl W. Wallace and William Kelley
Music:
Maurice Jarre
Cast:
John Book: Harrison Ford
Rachel: Kelly McGillis
Paul Schaeffer: Josef Sommer
Samuel: Lukas Haas
Eli Lapp: Jan Rubes
Daniel Hochleitner: Alexander Godunov
McFee: Danny Glover
Moses Hochleitner: Viggo Mortensen
Witness
is the official capacity for eight-year-old Amish boy Samuel (Lukas Haas)
after he is the only one who saw the murder of an undercover narcotics
agent committed by two men, one being McFee (a pre-Lethal WeaponDanny Glover). They want to silence him and it's up to maverick
Philadelphia cop with a daft name John Book (Harrison Ford) to protect him.
He enters the community that time forgot - parodied in
Kingpin, embeds
himself in with the locals and falls in love with Samuel's mother, Rachel
(a pre-Top GunKelly McGillis).
While Ford is fine as always and came to this after the first two Indiana
Jones films, the story plods along for nearly two hours and turns out
so predictable - it's just the setting that isn't often touched upon.
The picture is presented in an anamorphic 16:9 ratio, but has a grainy look
throughout which surely shouldn't have pass through Paramount's quality
control department.
The average bitrate is a high 8.5Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.
The sound has been remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English alone. I have
no complaints with the quality, but it's hardly an action-packed film and
as such is used for occasional directional effects only.
Extras :
Chapters :
17 chapters for the 108-minute running time. Not quite enough really.
Languages/Subtitles :
Dolby Digital 5.1 in English alone. Surround sound for the French, Czech,
German and Italian communities, while the Polish and Spanish are monotonous.
Subtitles are available in English (and hard of hearing), Croatian, Danish,
Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese,
Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
And there's more... :
An anamorphic 16:9 widescreen trailer lasting almost 80 seconds
and a seven-minute interview with director Peter Weir. Both you'll
watch once and probably not go back to.
Menu :
A basic static and silent menu with a shot of the front cover and the usual
options.
So, I didn't enjoy this film but if you did, it's difficult to recommend this
disc given the picture problems and lack of any lasting extras.
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
