Mr. Deeds on DVD

Despite a conscious attempt to turn the remake of Frank Capra’s “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” into a brand-name Adam Sandler movie “Mr. Deeds” still succeeds as an update to that classic.

It also succeeds as an Adam Sandler movie, so we guess it’s a “win-win” scenario for all involved.

Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds, a small town New Hampshire pizzeria owner and all ‘round good guy who suddenly inherits 40 billion dollars worth of stock when an unknown distant relative dies with no other heirs.

So “Deeds” (he hates his given name) heads to The Big Apple to claim his fortune, while being played for a sucker by the media conglomerate’s greedy “head honcho” (Peter Gallagher), who’s out to dismantle the empire for the sake of enriching the shareholders.

Deeds is a fish out of water, but he’s also an awfully decent guy and this endears him to every real person (as opposed to the media, corporate, and cultural elites) he meets. Unlike Gary Cooper’s Deeds in the Capra original, however, this Deeds also carries some Sandler baggage with him, so Cooper’s quiet dignity is replaced by Sandler’s dullish-witted but well-meaning character.

He’s made fun of and attacked by the abovementioned elites, although one of them - a reporter (Winona Ryder) trying to get the scoop on him - discovers his positive qualities once she gets to know him. But it’s too late; she has contributed to his Big Apple Humiliation and he eventually “aw shucks” it all and heads back home to where the people are real and life is worth living.

All this is pretty strange to see coming from a current Hollywood/media climate; here, the good guy is exactly the kind of person they like to keep “in his place” while the pompous asses who do Deeds wrong are in reality THEM!

Anyway, the producers have done a pretty good job of updating Capra’s masterpiece, though it’s still the better of the two versions. Sandler, as usual, does a good job with his usual character of the slower-witted guy with a heart of gold. What’s different about him this time is that, rather than facing a challenge and eventually rising to it as he did in most of his other films, this time he doesn’t need to rise to anything, those around him need to rise to his level - and some eventually do.

Ryder almost steals the show (okay, she doesn’t really, but we couldn’t resist a “theft” joke) as the hard as nails reporter who softens under Deeds’ spell. She’s very good in the role, as is Peter Gallagher as the nasty corporate executive (we’d love to see Hollywood do a nice corporate executive; the only example we can think of is the brothers in Sabrina). John Turturro is wonderful as Deeds’ Spanish butler - and watch for the usual cameos one expects in a Sandler movie.

With this Special Edition DVD, Columbia Tristar has, unfortunately, chosen to abandon its longstanding policy of releasing anamorphic widescreen and Pan&Scan versions in the same box, and Mr. Deeds offers both versions sold separately. This is a disservice to consumers who buy the Pan&Scan version, because they’re going to have to watch it stretched and/or zoomed when they convert to a widescreen TV - as they will, eventually.

And that’s what happened to us. We were sent the “full screen” (read Pan&Scan) version and so had to give it the digital “widezoom” treatment when we watched it on our reference 16x9 aspect ratio TV. Needless to say, the digitally mastered (in HD) picture quality suffered because of that, though to be fair it was still really good - it would have been superb if it had been anamorphic widescreen, or if we’d watched it on a 4x3 TV. The image is sharp, colors are rich and deep, and we couldn’t detect any sort of artifacts in the movie, despite the digital distortion.

Audio, which is Dolby Digital 5.1, is also excellent, though there isn’t a lot of surround use; some scenes (for instance the helicopter shots) would have benefited from the room-filling use of the rear channels, but ‘twas not to be.

They have put in a bunch of extras, however, and they’re worth your time.

First up is a running commentary featuring director Stephen Brill and writer Tim Herlihy. There are also some deleted scenes (most of which, as usual, should have been deleted), and some featurettes focusing on various aspects of the production ("Clothes Make the Man," "From Mandrake Falls to Manhattan," and "Spare No Expense"). You also get some of Deeds’ “greeting cards” (he’s an aspiring Hallmark writer), some pretty good outtakes and the Dave Matthews Band music video “Where are You Going?”

There are also some DVD ROM features and Web links.

Mr. Deeds, from Columbia Tristar Home Video
97 min. Pan&Scan (not 16x9 TV compatible) or anamorphic widescreen (16x9 TV compatible) - sold separately. Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Starring Adam Sandler, Winona Ryder, Peter Gallagher, John Turturro
Produced by Sin Ganis, Jack Giarraputo
Written by Tim Herlihy, Directed by Stephen Brill

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