6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.2 |
Frank Keller is a New York detective investigating a case of a serial killer who finds the victims through the lonely hearts column in newspapers. Keller falls in love with Helen, the main suspect in the case.
Starring: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman, Michael Rooker, William HickeyCrime | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Answering personal ads is not for the faint of heart. I know from good experience. The first time I answered an ad, I ended up going to an Ella Fitzgerald concert with a woman who, just as we were entering the theater, decided to confide in me that she had just been released from a mental institution (I swear I am not making this up). As I’ve joked for years afterwards, somewhere between “A tisket” and “a tasket” (Ella’s iconic opening number), this woman once again went off the deep end and descended into hysterical fits of weeping. Needless to say, the rest of the audience surrounding us was not amused, and I was frankly so flustered I really didn’t know what to do. I got the woman back out into the lobby, told her I didn’t think this was going to work out, and made my way out into the open air. (It may not have been gallant, but I was more than a little freaked out.) It took me several years to once again work up the courage to answer a personal ad, though by this time at least they had added the extra benefit of being able to call and listen to the woman you were interested, and I instantly fell in love with the ad placer’s sonorous voice. (It turned out later that this woman was one of Portland's top rated radio news anchors, one whose voice was known and loved by literally thousands of listeners.) We went out on a date, and I’m happy to relate we’ve now been married for close to twenty years and have two beautiful children to boot. Now some of you cynics may say that the second ad actually turned out much more tragically than the first, but one way or the other, the disparate outcomes I personally experience should be ample proof (as if any were needed) of just how dangerous answering personal ads can be. That’s part and parcel of the plot of Sea of Love, a kind of turgid melodramatic thriller from 1989 that nonetheless has developed a certain cachet over the years and was at the time of its release the first outright hit film that star Al Pacino had appeared in for several years.
Sea of Love is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Sea of Love was released on HD-DVD and my hunch is this is the same transfer that was utilized for that release (if anyone has definitive information, please pass it on and I'll include it in the review). This is a pretty drab looking high definition presentation, one not helped at all by the fact that this film is so relentlessly dark, as is shown quite clearly in the screencaps included in this review. Contrast is often low, resulting in a lack of fine object detail and pretty muddy shadow detail, with outright crush in several key sequences (it's kind of funny early in the film when Harold Becker's commentary mentions "seeing Pacino walk home" and we can barely even make him out in the nighttime gloom). Flesh tones are slightly ruddy or even orange but the rest of the film tends to not exploit the kind of color scheme that would help this presentation really pop. The good news is the film looks at least marginally better in motion than these screencaps might indicate, and for those who feel Universal is genetically incapable of not smearing catalog releases with DNR, there's a perhaps unexpected element to this presentation: actual film grain!
Sea of Love's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is fine as far as it goes, but the problem is, it just never goes very far. While there is occasional surround activity from the hubbub of city streets to even the crowd noises in the film's early sting operation, there's nothing here that really impresses, and the entire mix is consistently front heavy without much zing or discrete channelization to recommend it. Still, fidelity is top notch, and Trevor Jones' sax soaked proto-noir score sounds fantastic. Dialogue is clear and clean as well.
As a mystery, Sea of Love isn't especially surprising, though it's well done and well structured. What sets this film at least marginally above the rest of its kin is the fine pairing of Pacino and Barkin, both of whom do great work. This is still a film that has a perhaps over-inflated reputation, one that resulted from its immense box office at a time Pacino hadn't had a hit film in years. Looking back on it now, it seems awfully predictable and not nearly as innovative as it might have in 1989. This Blu-ray offers pretty uninspiring image quality, something that has evidently hampered previous home video releases, and its audio quality, while better, isn't spectacular either. The supplements are kind of middling, with the Becker commentary the best thing in that package. Fans of the film may—may—want to check this out, but only with expectations properly lowered.
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