7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Based on the true story of a twice-divorced mother working as a low-level secretary at a Los Angeles law firm, a chronicle of a woman, without a law degree, who takes it upon herself to fight powerful corporate forces. Hired out of sympathy after her lawyer lost her personal injury suit, Brockovich stumbled upon the cover-up involving contaminated water in a small desert community, while working at the small law firm. Brockovich tracks a case of water poisoning created by PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) and champions it all the way up the judicial ladder—becoming instrumental in rallying the over 600 plaintiffs and in helping them win the largest class-action suit of its type.
Starring: Julia Roberts, David Brisbin, Dawn Didawick, Albert Finney, Valente RodriguezRomance | 100% |
Biography | 24% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): DTS 5.1
Spanish: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy (as download)
DVD copy
BD-Live
Mobile features
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The story of Erin Brockovich-Ellis (as she's now known) seems tailor-made for the movies. The heroine is bold, brash and memorable. She goes from obscurity, debt and near-starvation to success and respectability, and she does so by helping others in a classic David-and-Goliath struggle (or "David and what's-his-name", as she says in the film). And the villain of the piece isn't just a big corporation going about its business, but the entire world of conventional wisdom that assumes "little" people should behave and do as they're told. By the time the film was released in 2000, Brockovich had already established herself as an effective investigator of toxic torts with her work for California lawyer Ed Masry on behalf of the residents of Hinkley, California, against Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). The film, based on that case, so burnished her credentials that a cottage industry arose of experts devoted to debunking Brockovich's work against PG&E and her reputation in general. Even though PG&E was still subject to a clean-up order from California for the Hinkley pollution, articles appeared regularly urging that PG&E shouldn't have had to pay large sums to the town's inhabitants. One epidemiologist generated a Washington Post article in 2010 arguing that the cancer rate in Hinkley was perfectly normal. The article has been much cited, but it's no longer available in the Post's online archive. Maybe someone figured out that this particular epidemiologist, who was something of a crusader, achieved his results by factoring in all forms of cancer, including those not associated with the hexavalent chromium discharged by PG&E into the ground water. But I digress. Efforts to undermine Brockovich only serve to highlight the magnitude of what she and Masry accomplished in the PG&E case. Toxic tort cases are notoriously difficult to prove, because the essential element of causation is so hard to demonstrate (a point stressed by the low-level functionary initially dispatched by PG&E in the film with a low-ball offer). Brockovich and Masry assembled a sufficiently compelling case that PG&E settled for large sums, whereas initially they were offering little more than nuisance value. To put it differently: Brockovich and Masry forced PG&E to take the Hinkley residents seriously. At bottom, that's what Erin Brockovich is about, and the theme is so thoroughly realized that the film will remain compelling long after any controversy over PG&E's actions has disappeared. Julia Roberts won the best actress Oscar for her portrayal of the title character, and contrary to what some dissenters voiced at the time, the award wasn't a sop to a reigning box office champ. The role required Roberts to stretch in ways that no part has before or since. Among other things, she had to risk being thoroughly dislikeable, forgoing the thousand-watt smile (for the most part) and the infectious laugh in exchange for a foul mouth and a bulldozing ruthlessness about getting what her character wanted no matter who stood in her way.
Universal previously released Erin Brockovich on HD DVD. Reliable sources have determined that Universal performed a new transfer for this 1080p, VC-1-encoded Blu-ray, with the "look" approved by director Steven Soderbergh. The film was the last of Soderbergh's on which he used an independent cinematographer, Ed Lachman, who shot Soderbergh's previous film, The Limey. Lachman is especially skilled at a highly stylized, artificial appearance, which is why he's a favorite collaborator of Todd Haynes (most recently on HBO's Mildred Pierce), but for Erin Brockovich, he maintained a more realistic look in keeping with the "true story" element of the film. The notable exception is the pervasive sickly yellow tint in the Hinkley scenes, which suggests the inescapable taint in the environment. Detail is quite good, as are black levels. Where the transfer suffers is in minor but pervasive sharpening that detracts from the film-like appearance one expects from the best Blu-rays. The sharpening isn't so severe as to create obvious edge halos, but it does make the image appear more digital and "processed" than it should. Nor does the sharpening appear to be an attempt to compensate for detail lost through noise reduction or high frequency filtering, since plenty of fine detail remains. Rather, it looks like a bad habit left over from an older generation of telecine colorists, whose practices were developed for DVD and smaller viewing screens than are found in the average home theater today. I don't think the issue is serious enough to warrant recommending against the disc, but it's enough to merit comment. Whether this processing is part of what Soderbergh approved or whether it was applied afterward is impossible to determine. (Updated June 13, 2012)
The soundtrack for Erin Brockovich was mixed by Larry Blake, who is the sound guru for all of Steven Soderbergh's films, and it reflects Blake's usual approach, which is sparing in its use of discrete rear channel effects, but sensitive in its achievement of mood and tone. For Erin Brockovich, Blake relied heavily on the atmospheric score by Thomas Newman, which uses synthesized sounds almost as sound effects rather than instruments, so that it seems to blend in and out of the mix. As presented on the Blu-ray's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track, the score has wonderful presence and depth; it feels like it's reaching out and enveloping the listening space. Dialogue is always clear, and there are some ambient sounds appropriate to various environments (Masry's office, a bar in Hinkley) tucked gently into the mix. This soundtrack may not be "demo" material, but it blends seamlessly with the film's images to tell an effective story, which is all one can ask.
To the extent any supplements from Universal's 2000 DVD have been omitted (mostly DVD-ROM extras), they can be found on the included DVD, which appears to be identical to the 2000 release. The extras listed below are those on the Blu-ray.
Soderbergh was nominated for the best director Oscar for Erin Brockovich but lost—to himself, for Traffic. No doubt Academy voters were wowed by Soderbergh's virtuoso control of the latter film's multi-stranded narrative, but I've always found the precision balancing act of Erin Brockovich to be a more impressive demonstration of the director's art. There were so many places where the tone could have gone wrong: by making the townspeople too pathetic, PG&E and its representatives too villainous, the alienating co-counsel too insensitive, the Brockovich kids too cloying, the heroine herself too offensive. With so many opportunities for the film to fall off the cliff, it takes assured directorial guidance to keep everyone on the straight and narrow. Highly recommended, even if it is a Universal catalog title.
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