Dave Studio:
Warner Brothers
Starring:
Kevin Kline
Sigourney Weaver
Frank Langella
Kevin Dunn
Ving Rhames
Ben Kingsley		 Director:
Ivan Reitman		 Regional code:
2		 Disc Format:
Double Sided, Single Layer
Screenplay:
Gary Ross		 Aspect Ratio:
16:9 or 4:3		 Anamorphic:
Yes
Year:
1993		 Sound:
Dolby Digital 2.0 in English, French and Italian		 Subtitles:
English and Italian Closed Captions, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese
Genre:
Comedy
Extra disc featues:
Biographies		 Length:
105mins
   

Review of the DVD - rating: * * 1/2

Review of the film - rating: * * * * *
This is one of Warner's first region 2 dual format discs, and thus very welcome it is too. It does, of course, continue in the fine company tradition of being mislabelled - the box and disc both offer "regular" and "widescreen" 1.85:1, whatever the hell that means. It turns out to be 4:3, and anamorphic 16:9.

Image quality is only fair - it is fairly grainy and there are a few artefacts to be seen, plus some strange vertical judder once or twice. Colours are jolly nice though.

The Dolby Surround sound mix is similarly uninspired - the surrounds sit at a very minimalist level, and there appears to be some minor distortion on some of the louder dialogue.

A shame too that there aren't even any production notes here (again, mis-labelling), and only a small handful of filmographies. In all, the film still shines here, but you'd have hoped that Warners, king of DVD, would have made it shine a bit brighter than this.

 What a glorious conceit - a lookalike president stands in for the real thing so he can get his end away with the secretary (imagine). Then The Pres drops dead. With a vice president the enemy of the chief of staff (Langella), a plan is hurriedly hatched to substitute humble Dave for the most powerful man on earth.

Gary Ross' screenplay for the most part strikes just the right note between sentiment and cynicism, while the uniformly superb cast perform their roles with infinite comedic subtlety. Reitman meanwhile, so often responsible for risible over-commercial pap, makes here probably the best film of his career.

It starts to drag just a teensy bit in the last half hour, and here the movie can't help but dip its celluloid toe just a touch far in the syrup. But let's overlook such minor indiscretions and enjoy this for the semi-thinking person's flight of fancy that it most assuredly is.