Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov July 15, 2022

Steve Kloves' "Flesh and Bone" (1993) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Paramount Home Media Distribution. There are no supplemental features on the disc. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Somewhere in Texas

Arlis Sweeney (Dennis Quaid) is a simple Texan. He drives a truck, loads vending machines and dyes chickens, eats, and sleeps. He smokes and occasionally has a beer. If he feels the urge, he may get himself a date too, but he likes being alone and doing the same things he has been doing for years. In rural Southwest Texas, where Arlis lives and makes ends meet, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Here repetitiveness has always meant stability, and you need stability to take control of your life. Arlis is fully in control of his life, has been for a long time, and does not intend to change anything.

But one day Arlis bumps into Kay (Meg Ryan), who has lost all of her money and is about to do a gig in a lousy bar full of drunken cowboys, and she unintentionally rearranges a lot of things in his life. Kay pops out of a giant cake, half naked and shaky, but before she could take off her bra loses her balance and collapses on the floor. The hard hit is not what prematurely ends her special performance, but the whiskey she has been drinking on an empty stomach while waiting inside the giant cake. Arlis picks her up, takes her to a nearby motel, gently undresses her, and puts her in bed. On the following morning, after Kay’s hangover goes away, Arlis offers to give her a ride home because he is going in the same direction to check on a bunch of vending machines.

In Arlis’ truck, Kay does most of the talking, and even though it isn’t much, or in any way revealing of her past, her voice soothing slowly begins to melt his heart. Then, at Kay’s house, Arlis experiences a completely different side of her personality when she discovers that her loser husband has secretly sold their furniture and arranged for movers to come pick it up. Much to Arlis’ surprise, however, instead of proving to be the legit excuse he has been looking for to walk away from Arlis, the family drama makes him like her even more.

But Arlis’ rapidly evolving relationship with Kay is put to the test when a young and beautiful thief (Gwyneth Paltrow) appears with his badly wounded father (James Caan), a notorious troublemaker, and soon after his wounds begin to heal, he tells him that one of them will have to put a bullet in his new girlfriend’s head.

Steve Kloves was born in Austin, Texas, and his second feature film, Flesh and Bone, very much feels like the creation of a native Texan. Indeed, Flesh and Bone goes places that you would rarely, if ever, see bothered by a film camera, which is why you could almost feel the heat, smell, and stillness of the great state coming through its visuals. Kloves wrote the story that is told in it too, and while it is a good one, what makes the viewing experience unique is this very authentic ambience that only a Texan could have preserved with a film camera.

Flesh and Bone opens up with a brutal murder that is the catalyst of its drama, but it takes some time before Kloves’ screenplay turns it on. For a while, it feels like Flesh and Bone is just taking it easy and looking for the right opportunity to switch gears. This isn’t an unusual concept, especially for a neo-noir thriller, but it isn’t a popular one because the part where the film creates the impression that it is just wandering around has to be done really well. If it isn’t, it collapses the entire film because it destroys its ability to appear authentic.

Kloves also gets the simplicity of the drama right. Except for Paltrow, who just does not look quite like a gal that could make a living as a traveling thief in rural Southwest Texas, the cast is very convincing. Caan’s effective transformation is somewhat surprising given that he had not played a contemporary troublemaker cowboy before. Quaid is very much at home and it is immediately obvious that he was the right actor for the part. Ryan also looks convincing as the fed-up wife who can start a new chapter in her life if the right guy comes along.

Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Flesh and Bone arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Paramount Home Media Distribution.

If you have seen our recent review of Australian label Via Vision Entertainment's release of Flesh and Bone, you should know exactly what to expect from this release because it is sourced from the same master. This is an older master that has some pretty obvious limitations but still provides the film with a fairly decent organic appearance. Why? Because it is free of digital tinkering. This does not mean that it has an all-around solid organic appearance. For example, in daylight footage, select highlights could appear a bit harsh, but it is not because someone recently went in and attempted to repolish the entire film with digital tools. These are inherited limitations from the time when the current master was prepared. Color balance is stable. However, if in the future the film is remastered in 4K and properly graded, some of the most drastic improvements will be in the reproduction of the primaries and supporting nuances. Finally, this release is slightly better encoded, but the difference is very small and given the master's limitations I don't think that you will be able to appreciate it even if you view your films on a very large screen. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).

Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

In our review of the Australian release of Flesh and Bone, I mentioned that I liked the lossless 5.1 track a lot. This release uses the same audio track, so I don't have any new comments to add. I actually viewed the entire film earlier today and was able to turn up the volume even more, so the strength of the current lossless track became even more obvious.

Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Most unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this release.

Flesh and Bone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A striking sense of place gives Flesh and Bone a very unique identity that becomes bigger than its story. But this story is very good too, so there is a lot to like in Flesh and Bone if you allow it to take you on a trip through rural Southwest Texas. Does Flesh and Bone deserve to be labeled neo-noir? Maybe. But as far as I am concerned, it is another very fine piece of '90s Americana. Paramount's release is sourced from an old but decent master and does not offer any bonus features. Also, even though the packaging of this release makes it look like the disc inside might be BD-R, and the disc art does the same, what I have is a standard pressed BD-25 disc. RECOMMENDED.