Review by Gary Tooze

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Description: Michael Sheen (THE QUEEN, FROST/NIXON), in another of his seamless performances, plays legendary football manager Brian Clough during his disastrous and brief tenure as manager of Leeds UTD in the 1970s. Talented but abrasive, Clough alienates some of those around him, including his rival, Don Revie, his predecessor on Leeds UTD’s bench. When Clough has the chance to coach Leeds, he takes on the difficult role of the manager of the country’s best soccer team. But outspoken Clough strongly disagrees with the aggressive soccer style the team has become famous for, while he has to struggle, quite unsuccessfully, to gain the trust and cooperation of his players. Also starring Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, and Colm Meaney, the film is based on the critically acclaimed book by David Peace and adapted for the screen by Peter Morgan (THE QUEEN, THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND).

 

 

The Film:

Excerpt from Matthew Turner at ViewLondon located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were ripped directly from the Blu-ray disc.
 

Image quality on The Damned United via Blu-ray is quite impressive due to the strong transfer and the excellent art direction and cinematography.  Heavy pastels, with plenty of green + blue, are rich and smooth.  Detail is strong with consistent and even grain showing minimally. This is a dual-layered disc - almost filling the 50 Gig capacity - and the feature covers almost 30 Gig alone. Skin tones seem realistic - contrast exhibits healthy, rich black levels. The vintage and stock football footage used has heavy grain and artifacts are apparent but this is to be expected. This Blu-ray probably looks like the film and is one of the better 1080P transfers we've seen from Sony recently.

Surprisingly the discs are not duplicated despite having the same extras and both being region FREE! The US edition, released 6-months later, has a lower video bitrate and colors and detail are marginally different. Possibly something was taken from the video side to add supplement audio and subtitles options - although the latter take up hardly any disc space. I suspect the system you play it on would have to be pretty discerning to notice any differences - I couldn't on mine but technically we can say that the UK edition has video rendered at a higher rate.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

Sony (UK) - Region FREE - Blu-ray TOP vs. Sony (US) - Region FREE - Blu-ray BOTTOM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Audio is in the form of an occasionally rousing Dolby TrueHD 5.1 at a respectable 2939 kbps. Despite the film being about football the actually playing sequences are minimal and it is mostly dialogue driven. Hence, it is not overly aggressive and buoyancy and depth are more at the subtle end of sonic presentation. You won't find your rear speakers getting abundant usage but overall the track is a very competent one - essentially like the video - flawless. Robert Lane’s score seems perfectly suitable to the film and sounds assured in the background. There are English and Hindi subtitles (?) and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

The original English audio seems exactly the same to my ears but the US editions offers two lossless DUBs (French, Portuguese) and another Dolby foreign language (Spanish) choice. The newer release also has more international subtitles language options. Like the UK release my Momitsu has identified it as being a region FREE disc playable on Blu-ray machines worldwide.

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
For the legions of both football and 'Cloughie' fans this film is a dream come true. Regardless if the accuracy is somewhat embellished - this is pure entertainment that you wish would never end and follow through the Nottingham Forest successes of the managerial team of Clough and Taylor. This is also a great Blu-ray transfer with wonderful supplements - we strongly recommend!

 

Still a great release and, despite shipping or if you need the extra subs and DUBs, the UK edition seems more reasonably priced at this time, however both are recommended! 

Gary Tooze

September 12th 2009

February 11th, 2010