5.5 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.9 |
Kansas City, 1933. Mike Murphy, former cop and now private investigator, must team up again with his ex-partner Lieutenant Speer, even though they can't stand each other, to fight rival crime bosses vying to control the KC underworld.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Jane Alexander, Madeline Kahn, Rip TornCrime | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | 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, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
German: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Czech: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Polish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Japanese: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Spanish=Latin & Castillian; Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, German SDH, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Thai
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
"If you could just release the announcement for City Heat and not have to look at the film, it'd be the most successful picture I'd ever been in." —Burt Reynolds
City Heat was shot by Nick McLean, who was also the DP on Burt Reynolds other 1984 release,
The Cannonball Run II, and reunited with the star the following year
on Stick. (Before moving
over to TV, McLean also shot The Goonies and
Spaceballs.) McLean's lighting on City Heat
diffuses a period sheen over nearly every shot, accentuating the elaborate production design and
constantly reminding the viewer that this story is set in the past. As an additional reminder, the
opening Warner Bros. logo displays in black and white, but that's as close to film noir as City
Heat manages.
For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, Warner's MPI facility has created a new 2K scan from an interpositive,
and the results set a standard for just how good an Eighties film can look. The grain is finely
rendered, the detail is superb, densities are excellent, and colors are richly saturated throughout.
The blacks of nighttime and tuxedos are deep and solid, and the shadows that routinely frame the
stoically fearsome Lt. Speer are rendered with precision. Warner has mastered City Heat with a
healthy average bitrate of 31.99 Mbps and a solid encode.
City Heat was released in Dolby Stereo, but the soundtrack was remixed in 5.1 for DVD, and it's the 5.1 mix that appears on Blu-ray, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Although the surround presence is largely confined to ambient effects like rainfall and to Lennie Niehaus's jazz- and ragtime-inflected score, the remix and lossless encoding do wonders for the film's pyrotechnics, which punch through with power and authority. Gunshots, of which there are hundreds, blast out of the speakers, with Speer's weapons usually the loudest. Several big explosions rock the scene, and while the bass extension isn't room-rattling, it makes itself felt. Irene Cara's musical performances go down smoothly, in sharp contrast to the cacophony of breakage that erupts during the periodic fights and shootouts. The dialogue is always clear.
The sole extra is the film's trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 3:07), which has a snappier pace than the film, thanks to the magic of editing. The DVD releases of City Heat in 2003 and 2010 were similarly bare. The trailer's voiceover reflects the PR campaign's reliance on the film's two stars: "Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds in City Heat. Need we say more?" As with most of its recent catalog releases, Warner has remastered the trailer in 1080p.
It's a shame that City Heat didn't turn out better, given the personal toll it took on Burt Reynolds.
After his jaw was broken early in filming from a stunt gone wrong, Reynolds was restricted to a
liquid diet, which left him visibly gaunt and depleted, sparking AIDS rumors, and also led to a
pain killer addiction that stalled his career. Watching the film today, you have to admire the star's
dogged professionalism, as he struggles, despite being injured, to inject lighthearted humor into
an enterprise that (as he later admitted) he already knew was doomed. For all Reynolds' effort,
City Heat never catches fire, but at least it looks good—never more so than on this Blu-ray.
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Paramount Presents #33
1980