Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		1.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

The Freshman Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 30, 2020

Andrew Bergman's 1990 film The Freshman is equal parts charming and funny with more than a little intermixed influence from Francis Ford Coppola's epic The Godfather. Not only is Vito Corleone all but resurrected for the film but various clips are analyzed, too (the main character is a film school student). The film's title could be interpreted to hold a double meaning; the lead character is not only a college freshman, he's also a newbie in the New York underground crime scene, an unwitting lawbreaker who quickly realizes he's in over his head even as he's on the fast track to the top of a powerful family. It's a breezy, amiable entertainer with plenty to offer both the casual moviegoer and the hardcore film fan alike.

Clark Kellogg (Matthew Broderick) has left idyllic Vermont for urban New York City where he’ll be entering his freshman year at New York University’s film school. No sooner does he arrives does a shyster named Victor (Bruno Kirby), posing as a cab driver, take him for all he has, leaving him with literally nothing but the clothes on his back. Fortune favors Clark when, while meeting with a particularly snooty and unsympathetic film department professor (a wonderful Paul Benedict), he looks out a window and spots the man who stole his life. Clark chases the man down but learns he’s lost Clark’s money on a horse race. But Victor can make it up to Clark with a job offering him “flexible hours and big money” driving for his uncle Carmine. With no hope to buy the hundreds of dollars of books required for school, never mind survive in expensive New York, he takes a chance and goes to the address given to him only to find “Carmine” (Marlon Brando) to be a spitting image of Vito Corleone in stature, voice, and mannerisms. Clark, fearing mob ties (and a Mussolini photo on the wall) accepts what appears to be a too-good-to-be-true $1,000-per-week opportunity that only tasks him with making a couple of pickups and deliveries per week. But as Clark unravels the truth about the people surrounding him, he comes to realize that no matter how hard he tries to get out, the harder they keep pulling him back in.

What follows are a series of misadventures. Clark and his roommate Steve (Frank Whaley) find themselves in possession of an oversized lizard which he later learns is a valuable, but also very rare and, in fact, endangered, creature. From there Clark desperately tries to free himself from Carmine's clutches, but he's reeled in so deep that he's all but forced to tie the knot with Carmine's one and only daughter, played by a lovely Penelope Ann Miller. Clark finds himself torn between his growing affection for Carmine, not to mention the easy money and all of the perks (like a new Mercedes) and the various plays meant to keep him in the family and away from the law (which is hounding him, too). The film has more than a few twists and turns to share, most of them predictable but a few of them genuinely surprising.

This is a charming film of simple steps and healthy humor. The script plays with enough originality to keep things fresh and the cast has a blast deconstructing it, particularly as the actors play off Brando's Carmine. Of course the resemblance is uncanny, and it's meant to be. Brando sells the balance between recreating his iconic role from The Godfather while slowly building Carmine into his own character, particularly as the film shifts away from his introduction and towards his character' growth and revelations in the final act. Broderick is fantastic in the lead, playing Clark with a richness of personality balance that allows him to possess a strict ethical code with just enough leeway, and circumstantial need, to allow him to say "yes" to Carmine's offer (which he'd better not refuse). The film enjoys several buoyant support performances from Benedict, Miller, Whaley, and Kirby.

The Freshman Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mill Creek enrolls The Freshman onto Blu-ray and it's clear the studio has cut classes and all but failed to crack the textbook. The picture worries from the outset. The imagery under the opening titles is miserable: flat, soft, heavily compressed, and poorly detailed. Unfortunately, that's the story for the duration. This is easily one of the worst transfers for a good movie ever to be found on a Blu-ray disc and an inauspicious start for the 2021 catalogue output. To be sure, there are some scenes that fare a bit better. When Clark meets Carmine for the first time, there's a mild uptick in stability and sharpness but it's small and such moments are fleeting. The compression issues really kill this one, along with a fairly dull color palette that struggles to offer any real vibrancy and saturation. Textural clarity is hardly revealing, favoring a flatness and a structural fatigue. It's often barely coherent, barely holding together as macroblocking infiltrates every background and the core picture quality struggles to escape a standard definition look. What a disappointment; The Freshman deserves much better.

The Freshman Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Freshman's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack proves capable of carrying the film's sonic needs, most of which are undemanding. The film opens with a couple of surprisingly deep and detailed gunshots which represent the most aggressive sounds the film has on offer. A few quasi-"action" scenes deliver some lighter output, often underneath score, which is plenty wide and nicely detailed. City ambience and light background sounds inside the coffee shop where Clark meets with Carmine are pleasantly rich and realistic though not quite so filling as they might have been with a larger channel output at the track's disposal. Dialogue drives much of the film. It's clear and detailed with fine front-center imaging the norm.

The Freshman Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Freshman contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen only offers options for "Play" and toggling subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release ships with a "retro VHS" slipcover which features alternate (and superior) artwork compared to the BD case proper.

The Freshman Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Freshman has long been towards the top of this reviewer's Blu-ray wish list. Sadly, Mill Creek has greatly disappointed with its release. The video quality is borderline atrocious. The two channel lossless soundtrack is fine. No special features are included. The movie is well worth owning, and the disc is at least priced right. It's better than any DVD copy, but not by a lot. Maybe Sony will one day save it with the transfer it deserves.