6.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Veteran stuntman Sonny Hooper has long been recognized as the best in the business. When a young rival arrives, the aging Hooper puts his battered body on the line in an escalating contest that his surgeon, friends and long-time companion worry could cripple him for life.
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Jan-Michael Vincent, Sally Field, Brian Keith, John MarleyComedy | 100% |
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 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
German: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono (Spain)
Japanese: Dolby Digital Mono
Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, German SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
After the runaway success of Smokey and the
Bandit in 1977, former stuntman-turned-director
Hal Needham could write his own ticket—or as the line goes in his next film, Hooper, "when
your last picture made over a 100 million dollars, you don't have to slobber over anybody".
Needham used his new-found clout to make a tribute to the profession where he got his start, and
the result was an action comedy that was every bit as loud and raucous as Smokey. But Hooper
also has a melancholy undercurrent that distinguishes it from Needham's other comedies and
which may explain why it didn't pack in the same size crowds as Smokey and, later, The
Cannonball Run. As much as the film appreciates the nonconformity, jollity and moxie of the
stuntmen (and stuntwomen) who risk life and limb for the sake of entertainment, it also
acknowledges the toll their work takes on their health and private lives, along with the nagging
awareness haunting every athlete that time is not on their side.
The standing of Needham and star Burt Reynolds in the stunt world was such that they could
literally get anyone and everyone, so that Hooper's stunt "gags" are some of the most elaborate
every captured on film, especially when one considers that everything was done practically,
without the benefit of computer graphics. The concluding sequence, which is supposed to
recreate an earthquake's devastation of a town, involved dozens of stunt players, countless
vehicles, multiple explosions, collapsing towers, crumbling buildings and an exploding bridge,
plus a rocket-propelled car. On a Needham film, there was no such thing as "too much".
Hooper was shot by Bobby Byrne, reuniting with director Needham after Smokey and the Bandit.
Byrne would go on to shoot Sixteen Candles for John
Hughes and Bull Durham for Ron Shelton.
Consistent with the "laugh in the face of danger" work ethic of the stunt players that Hooper
celebrates, Byrne's lighting is consistently bright and cheerful and, unlike feature films where the
DP has to manipulate the photography to conceal the stunt double's face, Byrne went for the
clearest image possible, even amidst smoke and chaos.
Like Sharky's Machine,
Hooper was badly treated by Warner on DVD, released in only a bland
full-frame version. However, Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is one of their better
catalog efforts: newly transferred from a pristine source and featuring good detail and sharpness,
a natural grain pattern and a bright but not overly saturated palette that emphasizes the realism of
the stunt work. An alert viewer will notice that Hooper and his fellow stunt performers are
usually surrounded by red, white and blue, whereas the director, producer and studio "suits"
typically appear in grays and browns. The only questionable shots occur during the huge stunt
sequence filmed as the conclusion to the film-within-a-film at an abandoned military hospital
that the Hooper crew dubbed "Damnation Alley". With multiple cameras rolling on one-time-only "gags" and smoke from massive fireballs
swirling through the air, a few shots came out
grainier and less defined than others. Blu-ray can't improve on what was already there, and to
Warner's credit, they don't appear to have tried.
Warner Home Video has mastered Hooper with an average bitrate of 23.25 Mbps, which falls in
the middle of their typical range. One might expect a higher average for a film with so much
action, but the available bits seem to have been properly allocated between the quiet scenes
where Hooper banters with Gwen, Jocko or Cully and the major peaks where people and objects
go flying about the frame. Artifacts were not an issue.
Hooper's original mono track has been encoded as lossless DTS-HD MA 1.0, and it sounds quite good for its age. The snappy dialogue is clearly rendered, and the numerous crashes, punches, explosions and general mayhem register with enough force and dynamic range so that you don't feel let down. (Turn up the volume loud enough, and you may even rattle an object or two.) The soundtrack benefits hugely from the score by Bill Justis (who also scored Smokey and the Bandit), which deftly alternates between country twang and action/spy movies beats, including a pseudo-Bond theme that's better than some of the real ones. The film's theme song, written and sung by Brent Myggen, is a tribute to stunt men.
Except for the film's trailer (480i; 1.33:1; 2:00), the disc has no extras.
Hooper was one of the first films to run outtakes during the end credits, although they aren't
bloopers, just alternate takes of scenes in the film. Most are stunt sequences, a reminder, as the
long list of stunt performers scrolls by, of the thrill, the danger and, ultimately, the physical toll
that a stunt player's life entails. The film would make a great double bill with Richard Rush's
The Stunt Man, which came out two years later and
focuses more on the element of illusion that
is essential both to the art of stunts and to cinema in general. Both films feature megalomaniac
directors, and both are a lot of fun. Recommended.
1977
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