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Crew, The
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
Although few may remember it from its short stay in theaters last Summer, "The Crew" is a comedy produced by "Men In Black" director Barry Sonnenfeld and stars Burt Reynolds, Richard Dreyfuss, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel as four former Mafia members who find themselves growing older and still together in Miami.
The film starts off as one of those movies where I was smiling on the inside, but it didn't really bring any big laughs. Dreyfuss narrates as we find out a little more about where the characters came from before and where they're at now. In one particularly amusing scene, we found out that Reynolds' character is now working at Burger King to pay the rent. ("Special orders do upset us", he says, before being tossed out.
But, the film never really does go anywhere, and becomes even less interesting as it goes on. The four former mobsters put together a plan to run down the rent in their apartment, but this starts other elements in motion - such as angering a drug lord (Miguel Sandoval) and putting a detective(Carrie-Anne Moss of "The Matrix") on their trail. To add to matters, a stripper (Jennifer Tilly) wants the crew to do another job.
The few laughs that started off the picture don't continue too much after the halfway point, where the few jokes that are attempted are too predictable and flat for their own good. It's unfortunate, because it's a waste of a mostly good cast. Dreyfuss is easily the best of the bunch, able to work with the sometimes less-than-quality lines and add make them work. Reynolds is decent, but often overacts. Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel are fairly underwritten charaters. Moss does a pretty respectable job with a really weakly written role, as well. Worst is otherwise good Jeremy Piven as a fellow detective and Moss' ex-boyfriend.
Overall, aside from a few decent moments, "The Crew" is a dissapointment, considering it was written by Barry Fanaro, also responsible for writing the fantastically funny Farrelly Brothers movie "Kingpin".
The DVD
VIDEO: Disney/Touchstone offers "The Crew" in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer that, although it generally looks very good, it's certainly not Disney's best work lately. Sharpness and detail are generally very good though, although the picture generally does still seem rather "flat" looking at times, lacking a nice depth to the image.
Flaws are noticable throughout, although nothing extremely major. Print flaws appear occasionally throughout - a number of minor speckles and marks. There's also some other mild distractions with infrequent traces of pixelation and shimmering. None of these are too irritating on their own, but they all add up into a presentation that's less than pleasing overall.
Colors are at least vibrant and well-saturated. The Miami scenery makes for bright, lively colors that show up quite well throughout the movie and look quite good. This is a fairly good effort from Disney, but it's not without its share of small flaws.
SOUND: "The Crew" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and aside from a few instances, really doesn't stray too far from the usual comedy presentation. There are a few instances of surround use for minor things, such as a rainstorm in a scene early on, but for the most part, the surrounds remain silent and the audio is presented from the front. As a comedy, this is, of course, a mostly dialogue-driven picture sound-wise.
Audio quality remains enjoyable as well. Although the music is generally pretty light in tone for the most part, some of the songs included sound more dynamic. Dialogue remained clear and natural, as well. Overall, the sound does the job with the material no-more, no-less.
MENUS:: Menus are nicely animated, with the score in the background. Although the transitions between the menus was a bit much, the menus themselves were nicely done.
EXTRAS:
Featurette: Working The Crew: A promotional featurette that offers interviews with the cast and crew. Producer Barry Sonnenfeld's interview footage here gives viewers a bit of a history of the project, as well.
Action Overload: Again, Disney offers this useless feature, which simply takes all of the movie's "best" moments and sort of makes them into another trailer.
Trailer: The film's theatrical trailer - full-frame and Dolby 2.0.
Also: Cast bios.
Final Thoughts:
Positive: .
Negative: After a decent opening, "The Crew" turns less and less funny. Disney offers decent, but not great audio/video quality, with a couple of very minor extras. The $32.99 retail price is far too much to ask, though.
Although few may remember it from its short stay in theaters last Summer, "The Crew" is a comedy produced by "Men In Black" director Barry Sonnenfeld and stars Burt Reynolds, Richard Dreyfuss, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel as four former Mafia members who find themselves growing older and still together in Miami.
The film starts off as one of those movies where I was smiling on the inside, but it didn't really bring any big laughs. Dreyfuss narrates as we find out a little more about where the characters came from before and where they're at now. In one particularly amusing scene, we found out that Reynolds' character is now working at Burger King to pay the rent. ("Special orders do upset us", he says, before being tossed out.
But, the film never really does go anywhere, and becomes even less interesting as it goes on. The four former mobsters put together a plan to run down the rent in their apartment, but this starts other elements in motion - such as angering a drug lord (Miguel Sandoval) and putting a detective(Carrie-Anne Moss of "The Matrix") on their trail. To add to matters, a stripper (Jennifer Tilly) wants the crew to do another job.
The few laughs that started off the picture don't continue too much after the halfway point, where the few jokes that are attempted are too predictable and flat for their own good. It's unfortunate, because it's a waste of a mostly good cast. Dreyfuss is easily the best of the bunch, able to work with the sometimes less-than-quality lines and add make them work. Reynolds is decent, but often overacts. Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel are fairly underwritten charaters. Moss does a pretty respectable job with a really weakly written role, as well. Worst is otherwise good Jeremy Piven as a fellow detective and Moss' ex-boyfriend.
Overall, aside from a few decent moments, "The Crew" is a dissapointment, considering it was written by Barry Fanaro, also responsible for writing the fantastically funny Farrelly Brothers movie "Kingpin".
The DVD
VIDEO: Disney/Touchstone offers "The Crew" in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer that, although it generally looks very good, it's certainly not Disney's best work lately. Sharpness and detail are generally very good though, although the picture generally does still seem rather "flat" looking at times, lacking a nice depth to the image.
Flaws are noticable throughout, although nothing extremely major. Print flaws appear occasionally throughout - a number of minor speckles and marks. There's also some other mild distractions with infrequent traces of pixelation and shimmering. None of these are too irritating on their own, but they all add up into a presentation that's less than pleasing overall.
Colors are at least vibrant and well-saturated. The Miami scenery makes for bright, lively colors that show up quite well throughout the movie and look quite good. This is a fairly good effort from Disney, but it's not without its share of small flaws.
SOUND: "The Crew" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, and aside from a few instances, really doesn't stray too far from the usual comedy presentation. There are a few instances of surround use for minor things, such as a rainstorm in a scene early on, but for the most part, the surrounds remain silent and the audio is presented from the front. As a comedy, this is, of course, a mostly dialogue-driven picture sound-wise.
Audio quality remains enjoyable as well. Although the music is generally pretty light in tone for the most part, some of the songs included sound more dynamic. Dialogue remained clear and natural, as well. Overall, the sound does the job with the material no-more, no-less.
MENUS:: Menus are nicely animated, with the score in the background. Although the transitions between the menus was a bit much, the menus themselves were nicely done.
EXTRAS:
Featurette: Working The Crew: A promotional featurette that offers interviews with the cast and crew. Producer Barry Sonnenfeld's interview footage here gives viewers a bit of a history of the project, as well.
Action Overload: Again, Disney offers this useless feature, which simply takes all of the movie's "best" moments and sort of makes them into another trailer.
Trailer: The film's theatrical trailer - full-frame and Dolby 2.0.
Also: Cast bios.
Final Thoughts:
Positive: .
Negative: After a decent opening, "The Crew" turns less and less funny. Disney offers decent, but not great audio/video quality, with a couple of very minor extras. The $32.99 retail price is far too much to ask, though.
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