6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A revealing look at the more intimate side of life for a group of successful friends who are reunited when one of their college buddies gets married.
Starring: Taye Diggs, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, Harold Perrineau, Terrence HowardComedy | 100% |
Romance | 61% |
Drama | 3% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Writer/director Malcolm D. Lee has now twice demonstrated that studios can make money with the kind of modestly budgeted dramedies they no longer like to make. The most recent example is The Best Man Holiday, released on November 15, 2013, which grossed $69 million at the box office on a production budget of $17 million, a shoestring by contemporary standards (and home video and other ancillary revenues are still to come). That film is a sequel to Lee's first surprise hit, 1999's The Best Man, which did $34.5 million on a production budget of $9 million. The real question is why it took Universal so long to greenlight the sequel. Having learned its lesson, the studio has already announced a third installment. Lee has said that he was inspired by films like The Big Chill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Diner: stories about a group of friends who maintain a special kind of closeness, even as they navigate separate paths through life. But Lee wrote about himself and the people he knew at a time when films with primarily African-American casts were just breaking out of the crime genre into mainstream appeal with features such as Love Jones (1997) and Soul Food (1997). As often happens, though, by writing specific, believable characters, Lee touched on universal themes. The Best Man is set in a recognizably middle class world of upwardly mobile African-Americans, but the predicaments they encounter raise familiar issues of fidelity and commitment, as well as the balance between personal life and career that can be as much a challenge for men as for women. Then, of course, there's that recurring and pesky question of whether complete honesty among friends is really such a good thing.
The Best Man was shot by Frank Prinzi, who knew from his work with independent filmmakers like Ed Burns and Tom DiCillo how to create a professional look on a tight budget. (Prinzi has switched to TV, where he is currently working on The Black List.) The opening title sequence, which is animated to accompany "What You Want" by The Roots and Jaguar, looks a little shaky on Universal's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, but this appears to be part of the animation, since the image stabilizes as soon as the animation is replaced by shots of Harper arriving at his Chicago apartment. These shots are rough and grainy, because the credits are optically superimposed, which accentuates grain and locks in any defects in the source. The true nature of the Blu-ray master doesn't reveal itself until the credits end. The Best Man's picture is consistent with Universal's general approach to catalog titles in recent years, especially comedies, which is to make them look more like HD video than film. Detail is plentiful, blacks are deep and accurate (though not every tuxedo is black), contrast is appropriately set and colors are varied and well-saturated. However, the grain pattern is neither natural nor film-like. In many portions of the frame, there is little grain to be seen, even though any de-graining that's been performed doesn't appear to have come at the expense of detail or the imposition of the "wax dummy" syndrome. (Contrary to popular belief, not all de-graining software is subsumed under the heading of "DNR".) At other times, grain is visible, but it's what I call "dirty" grain, which is to say that it's coarse and overemphasized. This is a sure sign of electronic sharpening, which is the Blu-ray master's most notable flaw. Fortunately, the phenomenon is not so severe as to create noticeable edge halos. It does, though, rob the image of depth and texture, although the effect is difficult to appreciate in still frames. The flaw is most pronounced in long shots, a minor annoyance in medium shots and barely noticeable in close-ups. Universal has placed the film on a BD-50 and opted for minimal compression with a generous average bitrate of 32.99 Mbps. This is ironic, because that kind of bandwidth could have easily accommodated a more film-like treatment of The Best Man.
The film's original 5.1 mix is presented here in lossless DTS-HD MA. It's a lively track dominated by the selections that make up the best-selling soundtrack CD (plus a few that were not included on the CD) and Stanley Clarke's energetic and occasionally emotional underscoring. In the "big" moments where one might expect elaborate sound effects—big crowd scenes, a bachelor party, a church gathering—the surround array is usually filled with a musical element, sometimes because the scene requires it (notably, "Candy" by Cameo at the bachelor party and "As" by Stevie Wonder during a critical flashback) or simply because director Lee has chosen music as his principal audio element. All of the music sounds terrific, and the dialogue is clear and natural-sounding.
The extras have been ported over from Universal's 2000 DVD. Missing are the production notes, cast and filmmaker credits, six bonus trailers for additional Universal films and DVD-ROM features.
Universal's edition of The Best Man may have seemed sufficient when it was first planned to accompany the release of a sequel with uncertain prospects, but now that the film anchors what can only be called a franchise, the disc has quickly become inadequate. The studio's home video division should begin planning now for a new edition to accompany release of the third film that will provide the kind of extras worthy of the first film in a trilogy, including, at the very least, a commentary and deleted scenes. Universal should also consider retransferring the film (or at least remastering, if the previous scan is adequate in its raw form) for a more film-like presentation. Comedies deserve as much respect as dramas, and Universal has shown that it can treat its catalog dramas like film when it wants to (see the recent release of Slap Shot for an example). In the meantime, this Blu-ray version of The Best Man is sufficiently serviceable to recommend for fans eager to improve on the DVD presentation.
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