Starring:	Jack Nicholson	133min
	Helen Hunt
	Greg Kinnear	1997
	Cuba Gooding Jr
		Romantic
Screenplay:	Mark Andrus & James L Brooks	Comedy
Director:	James L Brooks	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	Columbia Tristar
Format	Single Sided, Dual Layer	Subtitles	English, Polish, Czech
			Hungarian, Incelandic
Aspect ratio	16:9		Hindi, Hebrew, German
			Turkish, Danish, Swedish
Anamorphic	Yes		Finnish, Greeek, Norwegian
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features	Film makers' commentary
	German Dolby Digital 5.1		Theatrical trailer
	MPEG surround 2.0		Filmographies
Case type	Amaray

The DVD * * * *		The Movie * * * *
Okay, I'll be honest, this one fooled me. I really thought this was a single layer disc since the layer change - between chapters 16 & 17 - is damn near invisible. Congratulations to Columbia for doing a superb job with this - the secret is to place the change in a quiet moment when you're roaring your head off with laughter, and it just passes you by. As a result of the extra capacity, the picture is pretty much perfect, plain an simple. The sound too is fine - unflashy as you'd expect (and hope). The disc contains one of the best commentaries I have heard - genuinely entertaining in its own right (excusing the inevitable lapses into gushing luvviedom). Edited from several different interviews, just about everyone puts in an appearance, including Nicholson, Hunt, Kinnear, Brooks and various other heads of department, including composer Hans Zimmer. The frequent self-criticism is refreshing, and it's a fascinating insight into scriptwriting and film making. Even it you don't normally listen to these commentaries, this one is well worth a spin. Compared to the US version, we get no fullscreen alternative, but gain a cute trailer and some filmographies, so Even Stevens on that score. It's a fine disc of a fine movie, and particular congratulations to Columbia for getting their region 2 act together on this one. It's taken them a while, but they really have a disc to be proud of here.		Giving a film the title of As Good As It Gets is really pushing it. Predictably it can't quite live up to the moniker, but it's not too far off, and it does give us a refreshingly unusual take on the old feel-good romantic comedy genre. Melvin (Nicholson) is an unlikely movie hero - racist, misogynistic, homophobic and astonishingly offensive to just about everyone. Part of the explanation for this is that, although a hugely successful romantic novelist, he is clearly not firing on all cylinders and is medically diagnosed as having an obsessive compulsive disorder. Part of his freakish daily routine is breakfast at a cafe, where waitress and single mum Helen Hunt tolerates conversation with him, but only just. Of course Melvin is in love, but it takes looking after a neighbour (Kinnear)'s dog to start to reveal chinks in the sadistic armour. Jack is totally on form here, for the first time in ages as a lead. Greg Kinnear, as the wounded neighbour, is quite superb too, but it is Helen Hunt who maybe just pips them both. Best known to US audiences from the harmless sitcom Mad About You and UK ones as the lead from Twister(!), she here proves an astonishing naturalness and range for which Academy Awards were invented. The screenplay is peppered with laugh-out-loud one liners which genuinely surprise in their audacity, but suffers a little from an uncomfortable jump for Helen Hunt's character at one point. But it is perhaps the direction from veteran Brooks which stops this film truly achieving greatness. This is long and, despite its many merits, feels long, and somewhat inevitably, the ending isn't quite as convincing as the rest of the picture. A minor point, but occasionally the camera also seems uncomfortably intrusive. Up for Oscar's Best Picture and winning Best Actor and Actress, the film occupies the role taken last year by Jerry Maguire (Cuba Gooding Jr almost reprises his role in this, by the way, but with predictably less charm). Although perhaps not in the same class as the Cruise classic, it is nice to see such an refreshingly un-PC, risk-taking yet enjoyable film so finely rewarded.