6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Hit man Cleve approaches writer/cop Dennis about a story for his next book: How Cleve made a living, working for one of the most powerful politicians in the country. To get the story right, they travel around the country to gather statements and evidence, while strong forces use any means they can to keep the story untold.
Starring: James Woods, Brian Dennehy, Victoria Tennant, Paul Shenar, George CoeCrime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Every time I stumble across an old rerun of Murder, She Wrote, I can’t help but wonder why any given character in the show doesn’t run in the opposite direction as soon as celebrated mystery writer Jessica Fletcher enters the picture. After all, it goes without saying that once Jessica is around, whether in her sweet little village of Cabot Cove, or, later in the series’ run, any number of more metropolitan locales, someone is going to end up dead, and not just dead, but murdered. Weekly murder mystery shows perhaps have a somewhat firmer grasp on “reality” (such as it exists in episodic television, anyway) when people like attorneys or policemen are the anchor of the show (think Perry Mason, Law and Order or CSI). Having a writer be the fulcrum of a seemingly unending array of nasty killings perhaps stretches credulity to the breaking point. Best Seller doesn’t quite go to the extremes that the long ago Angela Lansbury television outing did, but it still posits an author who gets caught up in a rather unlikely scenario when a professional hitman approaches him with an offer to spill the beans about his nefarious stock in trade, a “memoir” which will no doubt be a sensational success and vault the author to the top of, yes, the best seller lists. It probably helps that Larry Cohen’s fairly fanciful screenplay at least gives the author a backstory as an erstwhile cop who has gone on to greater reward as a crime novelist. Perhaps appropriately “pulpy,” Best Seller offers a good showcase for stars Brian Dennehy and James Woods, but it never really comes off as anything other than an overheated fantasy that pretends to be “ripped from the headlines,” but which plays as a resolute piece of fiction.
Best Seller is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The opening several minutes of the film, which include opticals like the credits and that later newsprint montage sequence mentioned above in the main body of the review, look pretty rough, with a very heavy layer of grain, overall fuzziness and unappealing contrast leading to things like crush when black police uniforms come up against shadowed backgrounds. But once the first post-credits sequence starts, things perk up instantly, with a finer grain field and noticeably improved contrast and color. The outdoor sequences, as with the first dockside scenes where Dennis meets Cleve, or later in Dennis' backyard with his daughter, offer commendable clarity and a nice reproduction of a natural looking palette. There are still occasional issues in some of the darker sequences with minimal shadow detail, but overall the transfer provides ample levels of detail. Elements show typical age related signs of wear and tear, with a fair amount of scratches, nicks, dirt and white flecks popping up. There are no issues with image instability, and as with most Olive releases, no signs of artificial digital tweaking of the image harvest.
Best Seller's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track offers good support for the film's dialogue, sound effects like gunfire, and the synth heavy score by Jay Ferguson. Everything is presented cleanly and clearly, with very good prioritization. Fidelity is excellent and there are no issues of any kind to address in this review.
Almost unapologetically silly at times, and with a kind of goofy humor lying just beneath the surface, Best Seller is needlessly overheated, especially in its third act, but it's also generally a lot of fun courtesy of the excellent interplay between Dennehy and Woods. Director John Flynn never really pauses on the inconsistencies long enough to make them a major concern in any case. The video on this release is occasionally rough looking, but with expectations for both it and the film in general set at appropriate levels, Best Seller comes Recommended.
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Per un Pugno di Dollari
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