6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The rivalry between two former college friends comes to an extreme fracas when they both attend the same glamorous event.
Starring: Sandra Oh, Anne Heche, Alicia Silverstone, Dylan Baker, Tituss BurgessDark humor | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Comedy | 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 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Is it politically incorrect to say watching two women slug it out in what would otherwise be typified as a testosterone fueled rage can be absolutely hilarious? Catfight has a number of knock down, drag out fights, often with some pretty gruesome sound effects and supposed injury, but because the combatants are harridan modern artist Ashley (Anne Heche) and tony upper west side Manhattan wife Veronica (Sandra Oh), as vicious as the battle indisputably is, it’s also often laugh out loud funny. Fists are thrown (and land with force, at least according to the sound effects), bones crunch, blood flows, and at various times (since this film is full of such hand to hand moments) each of the fighters ends up in a coma, and yet Catfight still qualifies as a comedy. An ultra black comedy, to be sure, but one with some significant laughs that may admittedly cause some viewers to ponder, “Why does this strike me as funny?” Writer-director Onur Tukel, whose included commentary is about as scabrous as the film itself, has a long line of basically uncategorizable films to his credit, including such disparate fare as Summer of Blood and Applesauce , and he continues with his bizarre and frankly even gonzo proclivities in this film. While the conflict between Veronica and Ashley provides the core of the film’s story, there’s background content that involves conflict of a more global variety, namely a kind of generic war in the Middle East that initially seems to be a boon for the fortunes of Veronica’s contractor husband, but which then spills out into unforeseen directions in what some might perceive as a too on the nose depiction of how “intimate” skirmishes can grow into something unmanageable. Tukel definitely has a point of view, though, and for those with a certain skewed sense of humor, Catfight may well be one of the more weirdly enjoyable films of recent memory.
Catfight is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The IMDb lists Red cameras were used for this shoot, and while detail levels are routinely high, the look of this feature, whether intentionally so or not, is a bit more on the "video" side than some other digitally captured offerings. The palette is also often slightly blanched, with brightness levels seemingly boosted, if only minimally, leading to a somewhat anemic, wintry look that actually suits the cold emotional tenor of the film quite well. That coolness extends to the overall grading of the film, which is often toward blue or slate gray. All of this can tend to add the perception of softness to certain moments, though especially in some extreme close-ups, fine detail is excellent (including some kind of stomach churning looks at various facial injuries the combatants sustain). I personally could have used a bit more defined contrast, but there are no issues with image instability or compression anomalies.
Catfight's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks gets good intermittent workouts courtesy of not just the repeated fight scenes, but a number of noisy crowd sequences that include the party where Ashley and Veronica first reunite, and later gatherings like an art show (where another fight breaks out, leading to the high falutin' audience concluding they've just witnessed "brilliant" performance art, in one of the film's funnier skewerings). Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly, and the occasional source cue is spread around the side and rear channels.
There's little doubt that Catfight is quite simply one of those "WTF" films that comes along every so often and pretty much willfully defies easy description. Oh and Heche are nicely matched here, and the film has a lot of pretty trenchant material, some of which lands (no pun intended), and some of which kind of misses its intended target. It's weird, wacky, and for some, it will be quite wonderful. Technical merits are strong, and at least for those with blacker than black senses of humor, Catfight comes Recommended.
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