Body Heat (DVD)

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Hurt and Turner couldn't be better. Hurt plays Ned as just smart enough to see where he's going and just dumb enough to miss the main curves; Turner plays Matty as just sincere enough not to be doubted and just cunning enough not to be trusted. Besides, with Turner's sensual voice and body, who cares what she's up to?

Kasdan develops all the essential qualities we remember about good noir: the dark look; the mystery; the romance; the suspense; the tension; the excitement; the irony; and the surprise. And almost everybody smokes. This film is hot, and if it were not for the steamy sex, the nudity, and the profanity, it might easily pass for a genuine noir of the 1940s.

"Body Heat" builds slowly, then grabs you and never lets go. The last forty minutes or so will have you glued to the screen. Fun stuff, if a tad overdone.

Video:
The Warner Bros. video engineers transferred the movie to disc in a high-bit-rate, anamorphic reproduction that captures most of its original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio, completely filling a widescreen TV. However, the picture quality is nothing to brag about. The image is most often soft, a little blurry, and occasionally fuzzy. Colors can sometimes be deep and natural, but they can just as often look ill defined, bleeding into one another. Although black levels are good, darker tones can obscure inner detail. I have no idea if this is the way director Kasdan intended his picture to look, in order to emphasize the old noir look, or not.

Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio displays a good front-channel stereo spread, a fairly well-balanced and realistic midrange, and quiet backgrounds. Other than that, there is little activity in the surrounds, a rather clipped bass, and a somewhat limited dynamic range.

Extras:
The bonus features begin with five "lifted" (deleted) scenes, lasting about nine minutes. Then we get a series of three newly made featurettes: "Body Heat: The Plan: Screenplay and Casting," "The Production: Filming," and "The Post-Production: Editing, Scoring and Release." You can play these items, with comments from the director, editor, and stars William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Ted Danson, separately or all at once, and together they last about forty-three minutes. After that is a pair of vintage 1981 interviews with Turner and Hurt, lasting about twelve minutes. Things wrap up with thirty scene selections (but no chapter insert); a widescreen theatrical trailer; English and French spoken languages; and English, French, and Spanish subtitles.

Parting Thoughts:
If there is any serious drawback to this modern take on old-fashioned film noirs, it's that it probably goes too far in trying to imitate the style of the older genre. In trying too hard, it tends to call attention to itself too often. That said, "Body Heat" is undoubtedly fun to watch, whether or not you are a fan of or even familiar with 40s' noir. Just the sight of Turner and Hurt together is enough to keep you interested to the very end.

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