Courage Under Fire (2007, Blu-ray Disc)

Epinioners,

I had no idea where else to place this essay of sorts on Fox's new line-up of remastered DVD titles, but since I discuss Courage Under Fire, which comes alphabetically first, at some length, I hope you won't mind that I filed this under said movie category.

-Bill C

I suppose that the entries in Fox's initial wave of dual-DD/DTS titles were selected for their aural oomph, but they do in fact share a theme, war, which seems too implausible as coincidence. The line-up includes: Courage Under Fire (***1/2/****), The Last of the Mohicans (****/****), Predator (***/****), The Siege (**/****), The Thin Red Line (***1/2/****), and The X-Files (movie; **/****)--bear in mind, that last one was subtitled "Fight the Future" in print: it is about the two-person battle waged on aliens and a shadow government in the name of protecting the human race. To that end, The X-Files has much in common with Predator. I think the studio's decision comes down to the notion that modern war pictures are armed with big audio dynamite.

My personal favourite among these is The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Michael Mann's stirring, if historically inaccurate, revision of James Fenimore Cooper's French and Indian War saga. In a nutshell, this is a work of and about great passion. Its most resonant ideas--i.e. the relationships that result from vendettas personal (a Huron leader stalks the daughters of a British colonel, who are being guarded by the endangered Mohicans) and political--are communicated in wordless, beautifully scored (by Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman) images.

Images that have finally received the THX and anamorphic enhancements they deserved when The Last of the Mohicans first came out on DVD, in the fall of 1999. (Five of the six films in this DD/DTS batch are re-releases; Courage Under Fire is the only one making its debut on the format.) Improvements in picture quality are minor, and that's not a dismissal: the 4:3 version, with the exception of its 4:3-ness, was darn near immaculate. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix sounds as if it's had a (much-needed) boost in volume, while the DTS recording is even louder than that. The surround channels are expansive; cannon-fire and the cries of arrows will fill your home theatre with period fury.

I must complain, however, that the "Director's Expanded Edition" is still the only cut included. I'd prefer a seamless branching release, a la The Abyss, with the theatrical print optional, if only because the pre-climax rescue attempt suffers in the absence of Irish folk band Clannad's "I Will Find You" on the soundtrack. (In adding shots to the pursuit, Mann was forced to remove the now ill-timed song.) The DD/DTS version features a single bonus goodie, a nifty, sepia-toned DTS trailer I had never encountered before.

Probably the third-best war flick in this quasi-collection (after my beloved Predator) is Edward Zwick's Courage Under Fire, which overcomes Stanley Kramer-type clich s (nightmares about the battlefield waking our protagonist veteran up in a cold sweat; a hail of bullets and grenades ringing in his ears while he's sitting at the supper table with a doting wife and their precocious offspring) through lived-in performances and a genuinely effective use of Rashomon-inspired montage. Charismatic Denzel Washington's Lt. Colonel Nathaniel Sterling, haunted by his own failings in the Gulf War, is assigned to review the posthumous candidacy of a female captain (Meg Ryan) up for the Medal of Honor. The sexist resistance he encounters slowly reveals a hidden agenda in those who fought alongside her; cracking the case becomes as much for the sake of women in the military as it is Sterling's own redemption.

Zwick is more self-consciously controversial in The Siege, another Saddam-era thriller that's too pulpy for its own good. Washington stars again, but as an FBI agent (nicknamed "Hub") investigating the threat of Middle Eastern terrorists on New York soil. Where vivid personalities emerged from the conflicting accounts in Courage Under Fire, characters crumble under the weight of a race-against-time plot here, save Annette Bening's shady governmental foil, whose see-sawing agenda is nearly always compelling. Then there's the matter of act three, in which every young New York male of Indian descent is quarantined in Brooklyn, all the better to pinpoint the needle in the haystack. News of that story development pretty much guaranteed the film some opening weekend "Hub"-ub, but The Siege turns out to be, above all else, an anti-military screed, and I think audiences resented Zwick's playing a game of political "chicken." I know I did.

Courage Under Fire is not only the better movie; it's the better disc, too. Zwick contributes journeyman yet enjoyable commentary to the former, detailing in the process the appreciably difficult task of mounting an American army drama without the support of the U.S. military. If he pauses, it's usually in awe of his cast. Courage is also supplemented by a promotional featurette, plus three trailers and TV spots, each, while The Siege's trailer is its DVD's only extra. Despite Courage Under Fire's THX approval, the discs are on a par with one another where audio and video assessments are concerned. These celluloid-approximating anamorphic transfers (letterboxed at 1.85:1 for Courage and 2.35:1 for The Siege) and 5.1 mixes are the absolute cream-of-Fox-crop, sure to impress the neighbours when not disturbing them. The DTS presentations are louder and tighter, both, just as they are on Predator, The Thin Red Line, and The X-Files.

Terrence Malick's Guadalcanal epic The Thin Red Line has splendour that is enriched by repeat viewings. Malick literalises the existential crisis that is combat in juxtapositions of blood and nature that haunt the air like haikus. The widescreen frame and six-track sound are essential to the film's poetic impact. A selection of Melanesian tunes has been scrapped for the DD/DTS revamp; they've retained, however, the gorgeous, 16x9-enhanced transfer, and the mix is alternately delicate and thunderous, as before. (DTS seems to improve bass-management and create a stronger "phantom zone" (the space between speakers) environment.)

Last and possibly least (depending on your outlook), we have The X-Files, the big-screen outing for small-screen icons Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) that's almost pointless to watch due to continuing developments in the series. Chris Carter's windy mythology reached its shaky apex in this virtual two-hour episode of the show; so many holes are filled in with explosions or cameos (Martin Landau, Armin Mueller-Stahl) that it reeks of a pledge drive to non-fans. The movie pays lip service to a cult following and nothing more, though as trash sci-fi it's relatively entertaining, and the leads have a cheeky chemistry that apparently works in any aspect ratio.

Letterboxed at 2.35:1 and enhanced for widescreen displays, The X-Files is perhaps as good as it's ever going to get on this retooled Special Edition DVD, which, in addition to a great, ever-so-slightly soft, transfer, truly pulsating audio (any passage set on or around the cornfield is ear candy), and some extra footage incorporated into the body of the film (I hadn't seen it in so long, I'm at a loss to identify the added material--I'm sure the truth is out there somewhere), we get a Carter-dominated commentary also featuring director Rob Bowman, a making-of that achieves some depth at 30 minutes, cast and crew bios, the theatrical trailer, and an 8-page commemorative booklet.