Bandits on DVD

Bandits starts off magnificently, and ends almost as well. Unfortunately, in the middle it gets caught up in the usual two-guys-fighting-over-one-girl shtick.

What's with Hollywood's obsession with love triangles?

Bandits is about two cons, Joe (Bruce Willis) and Terry (Billy Bob Thornton), who break out of jail and go on a string of bank robberies. They're decent enough guys and, like Joe says, they "never stole from anyone who earned it." It just so happens that they picked the wrong profession.

Then one day they meet Kate (Cate Blanchett), a lonely and beautiful housewife, who can either help them or destroy them. They aren't quite sure which.

They both end up falling in love with her, and she ends up falling in love with both of them, which leads to a love triangle that, as mentioned, interferes with the good parts of the movie (surprise, surprise).

Fortunately, the romantic elements end up playing second fiddle to the heist picture elements, and there's a nice twist ending that leaves one satisfied.

Even with the love triangle, Bandits is a good movie. It has a sharp wit about it, and it's backed by three perfectly cast leads. Bruce Willis does more than just talk his way through this one (he can actually act), Cate Blanchett brings an appropriate amount of vulnerability to her role, but the real treat is Billy Bob Thornton. His portrayal of the obsessive compulsive genius is dead-on. At some points in the movie you question how smart he really is, but later you realize it's due to his mental instability.

Director Barry Levinson does an excellent job. The film has his personal touch all over it, especially the mix of drama, comedy, action, suspense, romance, and adventure.

Bandits is a lot of fun to watch; it's a very underrated film in which a great cast and a great director back up a not-quite-great story to make a movie that anyone can enjoy.

Unfortunately, the DVD experience we had was not nearly worthy of the movie. MGM only sent us a "screener" disc that has the movie on it, and nothing else. No extras.

If that weren't bad enough, this screener turns out to be bad, even for screeners. When I first popped the disc in, I a problem: this particular screener is not even anamorphic!! We had to change the video setting on our widescreen TV to zoom the picture to fill the 16x9 screen, which resulted in severe pixelization. Needless to say, the picture quality at that point was pretty poor.

And even the sound was sub-par.

I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable. I really enjoyed the movie, and it's one that deserves a decent DVD version. But because we got this "thrown together" screener, we have no choice but to express our disgust.

The final version of the DVD will apparently have 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, 5.1 Dolby Digital, and a few extras. but since we haven't actually experienced that we can't comment on their quality.

Good movie; I wish I could have reviewed the disc.

Bandits, from MGM Home Entertainment
123 minutes, anamorphic widescreen (2.35:1) 16X9 enhanced, 5.1 Dolby Digital
Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchett
Produced by Barry Levinson, Paula Weinstein
Written by Harley Peyton
Directed by Barry Levinson

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