Starring:	Denzel Washington	111min
	Gene Hackman
		1995
Director:	Tony Scott	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	Buena Vista
Format	Single Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English
			English Closed Captions
Aspect ratio	2.35:1		French
			Dutch
Anamorphic	Yes		Portugese
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 5.1	Extra Features
	French Dolby Digital 2.0
	Italian Dolby Digital 2.0	Case type	Amaray

The DVD * 1/2		The Movie * * * *
Another good movie thrown away by Disney, this again features their wonderful USP (marketing jargon for Unique Selling Point) - out of sync dialogue. In this case, maybe it's some highly complex physics involving the speed of sound waves underwater, but I somehow doubt it. Early scenes suffer on the Panasonic A100 and Pioneer DV-505 from a mild dose, the last 20 minutes suffer more acutely. Some more on that strange Disney picture. These titles have been converted from ordinary NTSC digital video tape to anamorphic widescreen DVD. From a normal viewing distance, the results on a widescreen TV are very impressive - the perceived resolution is way above a non-anamorphic disc, and the colour rendition is pretty good. However, at even marginally closer to the set, the whole game is given away. Some have referred to the strange moving picture effect as Wandering Eye Syndrome - people's pupils occasionally become disturbingly disconnected from their heads. This, of course, is but one symptom - on a camera track, people move at different times and in different ways, and gradations appear in areas of subtle colour change. It's amazing that it works at a distance at all - but it does. Crimson Tide also suffers acutely from one of DVDs few inherent flaws. Huge blocks of single colour (even grey) can sometimes result in subtle banding - lines whizz their way diagonally across the picture. This film features countless Panavision vistas of murky blues and alarming reds, and we witness as bad a case of this effect as I have seen. The sound (apart from slipping sync) is very good however, with none of the weak dialogue or dynamic-less guts that have blighted other Disney releases. Other than the multiple language and subtitles options, there are (again) no other extras. A feature-less disc with a standards converted picture would get 2 stars if all else was well. So far, only Ransom has come into that category. Disney's apparent ambivalent attitude has again further screwed up an otherwise lacklustre release.		Testosterone feulled" is of course 90's speak for "no women". Whatever your preferred phrase, the producers and director of Top Gun here bring you more sweaty men than an entire WWF season, bonding in a US nuclear submarine to the now standard-military-issue Martha Reeves and the Vandellas whilst merrily heading straight for World War III. With ten years gap between the Cruise Missiles and the Cruise Navy-pilot, the good news is that at least it amounts to something more than a military recruitment film. The set-up may be paranoid, but it's not totally whacked out. A barking mad and dangerous communist faction has taken control of a Russian nuclear base. Constituting the first and last line of defence, the good sub USS Alabama is dispatched with seasoned captain Hackman at the helm and last minute squeaky clean replacement Washington as Commanding Officer. Mutual respect despite ideological descrepancies is put under strain in the heat of the action, as a Ruskie sub turns on them, cutting off their communication with the outside world. This naturally includes the Pentagon who, having issued an order to strike, were half way through sending a new message when disaster struck. The claustrophobic tension is superbly led by Hackman and Washington, both on top form as they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, and director Scott in easily his best film to date. The script offers a strong premise and, like A Few Good Men, probes well the psyche of the military system (when the uncredited Tarantino re-write isn't embarrasing us with already tiresome and here wildly innapropriate pop culture references). It is testimony to the strength of the scerenplay that no Inevitable comparisons with The Hunt For Red October show this to be less epic but more lean and mean, even if the last reel cannot quite live up to the others. As blockbuster entertainment goes, this is good if not outstanding stuff, and is a mighty fine way to spend a Friday night in with - naturally - the lads.