Witness For the Prosecution

Search DVDBeaver

S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

directed by Julian Jarrold
UK 2016

Yet another of the BBC's tarted up yet dreary butcherings of an Agatha Christie property, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION - previously adapted by Billy Wilder in 1957 - in which wealthy widow Emily French becomes cougarific Kim Cattrall (SEX AND THE CITY) brutally murdered with all evidence pointing to her younger waiter-turned-toy boy Leonard Vole (Billy Howle, THE SENSE OF AN ENDING). Small-time solicitor John Mayhew (Toby Jones, BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO), burdened here with PTSD, a crazy wife, and sexual inadequacy, takes the case and tracks down Leonard's Austrian wife Romaine (Andrea Riseborough, BIRDMAN) to give her husband an alibi only to discover that she's the perfect... well, you know the title.

Eric Cotenas

Theatrical Release: 26 December 2016 - 27 December 2016 (UK TV)

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

DVD Review: Acorn Media - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Acorn Media Region 2 - PAL
Runtime	1:58:36 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 8.14 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo
Subtitles	English HoH, none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Acorn Media Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1 Edition Details: � Episodes (with 'Play All' option; 1:58:36): � - Part 1 (16:9; 59:44) � - Part 2 (16:9; 59:04) � 'Page to Screen' (16:9; 23:20) � 'Fashion' (16:9; 10:55) � 'Anatomy of a Murder' (16:9; 2:33) � 'Filming on the Front' (16:9; 9:31) � Picture Gallery (0:45) DVD Release Date: January 9th, 2017 Amaray Chapters 12

Comments

Despite the film being just under two hours and encoded at a high bitrate (and just over two-and-a-half hours total content), Acorn's disc looks softer than some of there more compressed releases of longer programs. Presumably this has more to do with the film's smokey/foggy/smoggy look than an faults of the encode. It looks okay in motion but the filtering seems to squander the show's period production value. The Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track is suitably enveloping and HoH subtitle are also included. The extras are include a "page to screen" featurette that does not so much make the case for the "noir before noir" embellishments so much as show how the screenwriter yanked out little details to justify the things the production wanted to shoehorn into it.

The disc is available separately or in the two disc set Two by Christie with the recent adaptation of AND THEN THERE WERE NONE.

- Eric Cotenas

DVD Menus