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VIDEO: A really beautiful 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. The daylight scenes in New York City are particularly stunning, providing a crisp, bright image. The image is clear and sharp throughout- a very "film-like" image that's very pleasing. Colors are bright and vibrant and the attention to detail in the image is really great. Colors are well-saturated and pleasing; all of the details of the city streets look fantastic. There's no artifacts throughout, no shimmering, no nothing. Flesh tones are handsome and natural throughout, looking great. Some of the indoor scenes look a little too dark, but that is more likely an element of the production values. Blacks in the image are strong and defined and overall, this is a really pleasing transfer. Some of the daylight scenes such as the opening scene at the museum just look great; there's some wonderful city photography in this film.I really do like a lot of MGM's DVD work(it's unfortunate that they just rarely make any movies, or at least very successful ones).

SOUND: Mainly dialogue, but there are a lot of scenes on the street that have a really nice amount of detail to the environment-sounds of traffic, etc. Even some of the indoor scenes have an enjoyable amount of little details, such as the sounds going on in a bar. There's a whole lot of crowds as well that have great sound detail.There's a minimal score of pop melodies and they sound fine throughout. Dialogue's very good as well, having a very clear quality that sounds as if you're in the same room as the actors.

MENUS: Very cute animated main menus. Sub menus are non-animated.

EXTRAS: Commentary: A full-length commentary with director Richard Wenk and actor Andy Garcia. I really found the commentary quite enjoyable, especially some of the details like what they had to go through to make a movie on the streets about scalping, a practice of which people who owned some of the locations were not in favor of. The commentary mainly focuses on the production and the actors who were chosen in their particular roles; there's a lot of talk as well about how the scenes were cut and handled, as well as some changes to the order. The director and actor also talk about some of the details on where the locations were. All in all, a really enjoyable commentary that has only a few pauses. Wenk does most of the talking during the commentary. Garcia occasionally offers his take on some of the scenes, though.

Test Footage: About 23 minutes worth of test footage that was shot in 1992 with Garcia and a small crew of people to show studios the kind of film that they were looking to make. There is a commentary from Wenk and Garcia that can be chosen to play along with this footage as well. Really interesting stuff here, early ideas and concepts of the film.

Deleted Scenes: Believe it or not there are 18 deleted scenes on this disc.(Is that a record? I think so.) The deleted scenes are seperated into 2 seperate groups, "Scenes From The Director's Cut"(11) and "Scenes Cut From 1st Full Cut"(7). The scenes very in length from a little less than a minute but most are a couple of minutes in length. Some are actually fairly interesting and could have been alright in the film itself, but most of them wouldn't have worked. The ones that don't work aren't uninteresting, they just would have made the film too long and some just seem like different or longer versions of scenes from the actual film. One of them is actually an alternate ending, as well! Another scene is "additional material from the film's actual ending". The scenes from the "Director's Cut" are of really quite good quality, the "scenes deleted from the first full cut" don't look as good in quality, but they're still interesting to watch. All in all, there's got to be somewhere around 35 minutes worth of deleted footage here, which is definitely pretty cool.

Also: Trailer.

GRADES:
The Film: 78/C = (390/500 possible points)
Video: 94/A = (376/400 possible points)
Audio: 93/A = (372/400 possible points)
Extras: 97/A = (291/300 possible points)
Menus: 85/B = (170/200 possible points)
Value: 96/A = (288/300 possible points)
Presentation:92.25/A = (91.5/100 possible points)

TOTAL POINTS:1979.25/2200
Overall:89.96%/B+
Final Thoughts: Not the best film ever made, but I didn't think it was that bad, either- better than the poor reviews it recieved during it's very small theatrical release. MGM has put together a great little disc for this film, though: the audio/video are really nice and you get quite a few extras for the $24.99 retail price. Definitely worth a rental at your local video store.

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DVD Information




Just The Ticket:Special Edition
MGM Home Video
1.85:1/ Dolby 5.1/French 5.1
Subtitles:English/French
112 Minutes
Dual Layer:Yes
Rated:R
Release Date:6/15/99
Anamorphic:Yes
Region:1

Available:
DVD:Just The Ticket
CD Soundtrack:Just The Ticket