American Gangster (HD DVD)

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Video:

I am somewhat saddened by the quality of this title in what is now the closing moments in HD-DVD´s life. I was most eager to sit back and enjoy the eighteen minute longer ´Unrated Extended Version´ and was frustrated to discover that the longer version of the film was located solely on the DVD side of the combo format release. The picture quality of the DVD side of the dual-sided platter wouldn´t pass as top-of-the-line DVD and I was instantly worried that the drab and lifeless looking DVD transfer would be equally less impressive once I flipped the disc over. Sure, Ridley Scott and director of photography Harris Savides had intended to give the film a gritty Seventies appeal to it, but the purposely dated look to the picture doesn´t lend itself well to the DVD format. I was disappointed to be required to watch the longer cut on the DVD side and I was disappointed in the quality of the DVD video.

Then I turned the disc over. The 1.85:1 film is mastered with the VC-1 codec at 1080p resolution. It is far sharper in detail than the DVD side, but coloring is still hindered by the washed out and dull Seventies palette and the HD-DVD release of "American Gangster" is hardly the swan song for the format that I had hoped for. Detail is strong, but not nearly as sharp as one typically witnesses on the format. Scott wanted a soft aged look for the film and this decision results in a good, but not incredibly amount of detail. Coloring is as strong as the muted palette allows. I saw some very pretty powder blue paint jobs on cars, but the palette is dominated by blacks, browns and grays. I can honestly say that Scott and company crafted a good looking film that brings back thoughts of the decade its story takes place in, but in today´s new millennium and high definition world, this isn´t a film that will impress technophiles. The source materials are clean and all-in-all it is a technically sound release.

Audio:

One starts to wonder if Universal´s heart was really in this release after discovering that the longer cut was omitted from the high definition side and that there was absolutely no ´next-gen´ audio tracks provided on the release. The studio has done a good job in recent times of packaging some rather good Dolby TrueHD soundtracks with their new and catalog titles, but this isn´t the case with "American Gangster." I don´t know of how much of a problem the storage limitations of HD-DVD were in this slimmed down release, but the lack of a good high definition soundtrack hinders this title further more from presenting itself as the last great breathe of HD-DVD.

The disc does come packed with English and French Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 soundtracks. They sound quite good as far as Dolby Digital mixes go, but the film is neither aggressive nor excitable for much of its running length. The soundtrack is clean, but I was surprised to discover that the film keeps its sound mainly contained in the front three channels. Rear surrounds and the .1 LFE channel are used, but not nearly as effectively as they could have been. About an hour into the film I can recall a moment where a phone is left to ring. The phone stops, Ted Levine steps in and the score by Marc Streitenfeld kicked in with some deep bass to suggest a serious tone to the events. With so much potential for ambient noise or support for the soundtrack in the rears, the remained mostly silent and bass was handled primarily by the front speakers. I´m not sure if Scott had intended the film to sound as limited as a Seventies film, but it hardly can rival recent competitors. A few cars do bleed to the rears and some minor environmental effects are thrown to the rear, but this is a calm sounding mix. Dialogue is strong and intelligible.

Extras:

The standard definition side contains the Unrated Extended Version that is touted on the rear packaging. With a length of 177 minutes, the longer cut adds a few pivotal scenes that include a long alternate ending that showcases the budding friendship between the film´s two main characters. I´m undecided on whether or not I liked the longer ending more, but the remainder of the scenes contained in the film was short pieces of fluff that only padded the length of the film. The full theatrical version of the film was contained on the standard definition side as well and contained the Feature Commentary with Director Ridley Scott and Writer Steven Zaillian.

The commentary track features the director and the writer and is contained on both sides of the disc. This is the only major and effective supplement of the HD-DVD release. I must say that I was not overly impressed with the commentary track and flipping through a few of the film´s chapters solidified my initial impression that the track is dominated by Zaillian and that he is the far more entertaining and informative of the participants. There were a few long pauses in the film where little to know information was thrown to the audience, but a three hour film is allowed to have a few pauses. Scott doesn´t seem overly excited in his words and I can´t imagine sitting through the full commentary.

The remaining supplements are nowhere near as nice as what is included on the 2-disc DVD. The HD-DVD release does include some U-Control functionality and the Picture-in-Picture capability is put to use. About a fifth of the film is actually populated by PiP information and some of the video shorts are too short and too lacking in information to be of value. Some footage was simply a behind-the-scenes shot of the scene in question being filmed. This was easily the least impressive of the U-Control equipped releases from the studio. Universal has also included My Scenes and some Web-Enabled Content that doesn´t add any additional information to the film itself.

The features culled from the superior DVD offerings include very little. The rear packaging throws out the obligatory "And More!" to suggest a plethora of content, but those two words pertain to essentially one bonus feature beyond what is listed. This feature, Uncovering the Past: The Real Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts (4:46) is incredibly short and promotional in nature. I am guessing this was pieced together from the longer documentary contained on the DVD and although I enjoyed seeing the real personalities in this vignette, it needed to be longer. Brian Grazer´s hair continues to scare me. The eight Deleted Scenes (9:14) are listed on the rear packaging and contain moments found in the extended cut of the film and an alternate ending that was previously hinted at after the credits. Sadly, they are shown in standard definition.

Closing Comments:

"American Gangster" on HD-DVD is one of the final major releases on the soon to be defunct format. Paramount has "Sweeney Todd," "Beowulf," and "Bee Movie" coming, but Universal has only "Fletch" on its plate. I wonder if the studio lost its heart with this film, because the DVD releases are far superior in bonus materials and the sound and video of this release are not that impressive. The film is technically sound, but whereas the studio had such a good track record of supporting the format, they appear to have turned an early cold shoulder to HD-DVD; before they made their announcement of going Blu. I can´t fault them, but I wanted more of this swan song. Hopefully, the Blu-ray release will be better when it arrives, but this is a sad statement for such a high quality film featuring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe.

In all likelihood, this is my final HD-DVD review. I still have a very small backlog of three Universal titles that do not play properly on my new Toshiba HD-A35 unit and had intended to try and play the discs on another machine to see if they were the discs or something wrong with my unit. One title is "Mobsters" and I´m not sure I want that film to have the distinction of being the final time I was given the opportunity to write about a format that I´ve supported since day one. I´ve been ´purple´ in supporting both formats, but I found that HD-DVD was my preferred HD format. It was a complete standard and worked well for me. Where I had more red in my blood than blue, the decision has been made that my blood must run blue. If my last title to review on the beloved format is to be a gangster film, then I want it to be "American Gangster." Rest in peace HD-DVD. We hardly knew you.

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