6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.9 |
The tough biker, Harley, and his no less tough Cowboy friend, Marlboro, learn that an old friend of theirs will lose his bar because a bank wants to build a new complex there and demands 2.5 million dollars for a new contract in advance. Harley and Marlboro decide to help him by robbing the corrupt bank. Unfortunately, they target the wrong safety transport and get hold of an amount of a new synthetic drug. Now they are targeted both by criminal bankers and killers of the drug mob.
Starring: Mickey Rourke, Don Johnson, Daniel Baldwin, Giancarlo Esposito, Tom SizemoreCrime | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The film title is not intended to identify or promote a product or trade name of existing companies. No company has approved, sponsored or endorsed the title or content of this film.Do you really care whether your favorite character in a film or television series drinks Coke or Pepsi? You may not, but the bean counters at Coke and Pepsi probably do, thinking that countless millions seeing a famous actor quaff down their brand of beverage will lead to thousands, and maybe more than “merely” thousands, of subliminally motivated sales. Brand name products typically don’t just “show up” in various media, and in fact their presence is highly negotiated and in some cases quite lucrative. While product placement has existed for well over a century (according to the not always very reliable Wikipedia, it actually started with Jules Verne, who mentioned several real life shipping companies in some of his books), public awareness of the “system” was generally minimal, until reports like the switch from M&M’s to Reese’s Pieces in E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial became the stuff of legend. Putting two iconic brand names in the title of a film would seem to be rising to a level far above subliminal advertising, but Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man doesn’t stop there, with other supporting characters sporting names like Jack Daniels, Jose Cuervo and (heaven forfend) Virginia Slim. (Weren’t cigarettes already pretty unpopular by 1991, when this film was originally released?) That may make the supposed "disclaimer" that starts the film (the italicized text posted above) a bit ingenuous seeming, though perhaps screenwriter Don Michael Paul thought it was simply "cute" to name characters after iconic brands without pausing to think about the consequences, legal or otherwise.
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is another film culled from the Metro Goldwyn Mayer archive which looks like it may have been sourced from an older master. Elements have the typical signs of age related wear and tear, with a more or less average amount of speckling, scratches and minor dirt on display. However, colors have faded noticeably, with flesh tones sometimes skewed toward a drab brown end of the spectrum. Detail and fine detail are acceptable but rarely at eye popping levels. As should probably be expected, the brightly lit outdoor sequences look the best, with a decently saturated palette that still looks reasonably accurate, and which pops more convincingly (at least relatively speaking) with regard to things like cloudless blue skies (see screenshot 3). Grain is generally organic looking, though can resolve somewhat on the rough side during the darkest sequences (notably some of the scenes within the bar). Some of the process photography (notably in the climax) looks fairly ragged when compared to the bulk of this outing (see screenshot 18).
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man features an enjoyable lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which springs to rather fulsome life when any of the many source cues play on the soundtrack, or when one of the lunatic action sequences unfold. Dialogue is cleanly presented and well prioritized. There's some good support of lower frequencies, helping to make effects like the roar of the motorcycles resonate with lifelike acuity. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range rather wide.
Maybe if Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man had upped the dystopian future angle even slightly, the film would have had more of an edge to help it provide a counterweight to some of its more off the wall proclivities. What ultimately tends to enervate this enterprise, though, is the curiously uninvolved performances, as if everyone knew they were making a stinker and simply wanted to get through the shoot with some semblance of their dignity still intact. Those who like largely brainless outings with a generous supply of violence may get a passing kick out Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, but even those people may want to keep track of their purchasing habits after having watched the film, if only to make sure that no nefarious subliminal messages have been injected directly into their brains (a la Crystal Dream). Technical merits are acceptable (video) to very good (audio) on this release for anyone considering a purchase.
Remastered | Paramount Presents #19
1982
1989
2018
2019
2015
2020
1998
Special Edition
1986
1974
Bastille Day
2016
2005
2023
1996
1983-1987
1983
1998
2020
2016
1997
2016