Review of Arlington Road

Introduction

Whilst wandering around a well known Video and DVD rental store, I stumbled upon Arlington Road. As I racked my brains for any snippets of information about the film, I remembered hearing good things about it when it was in the cinema. With a good cast on board (Tim Robbins, Jeff Bridges and Joan Cusack) and what sounded like an interesting plot, it looked like it was worth a rental.

Video

A very good 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer is on offer here. Brightness and colour levels are good and there are no artefacts on show.

There aren`t many special effects on show, but there are some nice explosions, and a few "freeze frame" type effects are used throughout the film.

Audio

A very good DD5.1 track is presented here. Whilst your system won`t be pushed to the limits for most of the film, there`s plenty of rumbling bass lying around in various scenes, and surround channels are used to good effect now and again.

Features

None, nowt, nil.

Apparently the retail disc comes with an interesting booklet, but my rental copy certainly didn`t. Probably better that it doesn`t as it will either get lost or smothered in bits of jam sandwich or something else. Some of the rental discs that I`ve seen recently have been in a right state!

Conclusion

The picture and sound are good. But I didn`t really enjoy the film itself. I must say that I found it all far too predictable. I didn`t really find it tense or nail-biting, and was just waiting to see if my next guess would be right.

It seems that this opinion is in the minority on this film, as quite a few other people like it. If you like this film and want to own it on DVD, please buy the region one version instead, which contains some nice extras like an alternate ending (I would have liked one!) and a commentary track.

Not my cup of tea I`m afraid.