Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 26, 2016

E. Max Frye's "Amos & Andrew" (1993) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of independent distributors Olive Films. There are no supplemental features on the release. In English, without optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

The other thief

Having just revisited this film, I am sad to report that it no longer looks as ridiculous as it once did. In fact, it feels like it does a pretty good job of exposing the exact same type of hypocrisy that currently has America divided again.

Andrew Sterling (Samuel Jackson) is a successful Pulitzer Prize-winning black novelist and producer who has recently purchased a summer house on a small island somewhere in Massachusetts. The place is supposed to be like heaven on earth -- beautiful, wealthy, safe and very, very liberal. In other words, here supposedly people like Andrew can finally be treated fairly.

But moments after Andrew phones his wife from his BMW and then enters his new home, his future neighbors, the Gillmans (Michael Lerner and Margaret Colin), inform the police that they have spotted a thief. They are certain of it because the stranger in the big house is black. Chief Cecil Tolliver (Dabney Coleman) and his boys then promptly surround the house and begin negotiating with the ‘thief’.

Since local elections are just around the corner, the incident is the perfect opportunity for Chief Tolliver to convince voters that he is still the one and only man that can keep their community safe -- which is why he and his boys do their best to extend it as much as possible so that he can get favorable coverage by the local media. It almost works, but then someone discovers that the ’thief’ is actually the new owner of the house.

Chief Tolliver instantly switches to Plan B, which relies on the services of small-time carjacker Amos Odell (Nic Cage), who is currently held in the local jailhouse and is bored to death. Amos is promised a free ticket to Canada if he agrees to play the missing ‘thief’ until the hostage situation is successfully resolved.

The film is supposed to be so utterly ridiculous that it quickly evolves into a light action comedy, but the bulk of the material is exactly what the major news networks have been mass-producing this year. It is pretty awful, really, because the excuses and especially the old clichés that are targeted in the film are once again in play in this crazy election year.

Cage and Jackson’s characters are essentially two outsiders who are positioned to observe and judge the liberal paradise from two completely different angles and what they see definitely isn’t pretty. Of course they are given different reasons to dislike it, but at the end it becomes clear that they can all be traced back to the same hypocrisy that has corrupted it. (Isn’t it great to see how the lovely Gillmans turn out to be such an interesting couple).

There are plenty of really good one-liners, but the film could have been even more effective if the exchanges were a bit more acidic. Also, at times it really does show that everyone is playing it safe so that the film can stay firmly into PG-13 territory.

The film was lensed by cinematographer Walt Lloyd, who is best known for his excellent contributions to Robert Altman’s Short Cuts and Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, E. Max Frye's Amos and Andrew arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films.

My one and only major criticism is that the release could have been encoded better so that some of the grain fluctuations that occasionally pop up were avoided. Even on large screens, however, the film has a consistent organic appearance. The master isn't new, but it is fairly recent and free of compromising digital manipulations. Obviously, this is very important because the basic characteristics that we typically address in our reviews are solid -- from definition and clarity to depth and fluidity balance is indeed quite good. There is room for improvement in the area of color reproduction, and during the darker footage shadow definition certainly can be better, but the current presentation still represents a very solid upgrade over the previous DVD release of the film. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are not provided for the main feature.

The film has an active sound design and the lossless track handles it quite well. It does not appear to have been remastered, but the basics are in very good condition. Clarity, sharpness, and overall balance, in particular, are excellent. Also, there are no pops, cracks, audio dropouts, or digital distortions to report.

Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray release.

Amos & Andrew Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

E. Max Frye's Amos & Andrew is supposed to be one of those silly action comedies that you watch with a group of friends during the summer and then quickly forget about it. I remember it being that kind of a film in 1993, but having just revisited it I must say that suddenly a lot of the material in it looks like the type of material the major news networks have been mass-producing this year. It is sad, but true. Olive Films' technical presentation of the film is good, but there are no supplemental features on the Blu-ray. RECOMMENDED.