6.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem, As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow. When he finds Abby Janello, a beautiful and smart real estate agent and mother of two, the pair fall in love.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow, Natasha Henstridge, Jennifer Grey, Tony GoldwynRomance | 100% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Robert Frost immortalized the human condition with regard to inevitable choices every person must make at some point in their lives in his legendary poem “The Road Not Takne”. Broadway composer – lyricist Stephen Sondheim covered much the same territory in his beautiful song of regret and realization in his “The Road You Didn’t Take” from Follies. In both of these cases, Frost and Sondheim seek to generalize out from one (or more) apparently inconsequential decisions to say something about divergent potential realties that remain forever out of reach once that very decision has been made. We’re all confronted with myriad decisions, picayune to immense, throughout our lives, but rarely does a single decision have completely devastating consequences for most individuals. Putting aside those who willfully harm another human being, relatively few people even experience inadvertently harming another human being, at least to the extent that it could cause emotional distress on the part of the harmer. Most of these incidents might be categorized under the general idea of “accidents”, but what might be the repercussions if a completely innocent seeming decision actually resulted in the death of another person? That conceit is what sets the plot in motion in Bounce, an unapologetically three-hankie weep-fest that posits Ben Affleck as a womanizing ad executive who in the midst of a debilitating blizzard that is threatening to quickly shut down Chicago’s O:Hare airport gives his airplane ticket to a happily married man who is eager to get home to his wife and kids for some pre-Christmas celebrating. Affleck’s character spends the night with another stranded passenger but awakens to media activity outside his hotel window, and turns on the television to discover the flight he was supposed to be on has crashed in Kansas, killing everyone aboard.
Bounce is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate and Miramax with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Once again the weirdly inconsistent tendency of these Miramax catalog releases continues; after the recent lackluster Kate and Leopold, we now get the largely stellar looking Bounce. Colors are nicely saturated and the overall image is very nicely defined and detailed throughout this high definition presentation. Some of the outside location photography suffers from just slight softness when compared to the more controlled interior sequences. Fine detail is quite good in the film's ubiquitous close-ups. Black levels are consistent, grain looks natural and is largely unobtrusive and shadow detail remains generally strong in some of the dimmer moments.
Bounce features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix that suffices perfectly well for this film's rather limited sonic ambitions. There are some very occasional nice sound effects dotting the surrounds—including the jolting bumping sound indicating the impending air disaster—but overall this is a pretty quiet film driven by dialogue scenes usually between two or three people. Fidelity is excellent, with dialogue presented very cleanly, and the film's underscore and source cues sound just fine in this lossless rendering. There's nothing here that screams audiophile extravaganza, but of course that's to be expected in a romantic drama like Bounce.
Fans of Affleck and especially Paltrow may have the patience to make it through the rather slow and artificial slog that Bounce offers. This is a film with too many pat elements, and a kind of disturbing subtext that is really never adequately addressed. Those who are squeamish about flying (and I count myself among them) might want to think twice about watching the film, since a devastating airline disaster plays such a major role in the plot. This Blu-ray looks and sounds fine, and the release does offer an above average assortment of supplementary features. Fans of the film should be well pleased with this release; others may want to consider a rental first.
2017
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1959
1994
Restored Edition | Warner Archive Collection
1937
Warner Archive Collection
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1937
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2005
Warner Archive Collection
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1954
Fox Studio Classics
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Warner Archive Collection
1952
Young Man of Music / Warner Archive Collection
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Warner Archive Collection
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1959
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
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2020