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  Directed by
  Starring
  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer (RSDL )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • Czech: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  • Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    English, Hebrew, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Russian, Dutch, English - Hearing Impaired, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Estonian
  Extras
  • Additional footage - 2 Extended Scenes
  • Theatrical trailer - High Heels, Low Lifes
  • Featurette
  • Animated menus

Corky Romano

Buena Vista/Buena Vista . R4 . COLOR . 82 mins . M15+ . PAL

  Feature
Contract

As much as I enjoy writing the drivel that you kind people take for a DVD review, sometimes there is an ugly side to the job. Yes, every once and a while, a film not worthy of praise or the plastic it is pressed in comes along and forces me at gunpoint to write a few nasty words on its behalf.

Today, that film is Corky Romano. The story concerns the youngest son and outcast of the Romano crime family. When the father (what is it with Peter Falk and mob roles lately?) is hounded by the FBI and looks in danger of winding up behind bars for life, the family recruit young Corky to go undercover into the FBI to locate and destroy any evidence they may have against his Pop. What follows is a comedy of mistaken identity, mob galahisms, FBI shenanigans and the overriding love of a man to be a vet.

Think I’m kidding you? Try me...

Where to begin? Let us take the so called actor who portrays said Corky Romano. Chris Kattan. Remember that name. Chris Kattan. Etch it into your soul. Chris Kattan. Should you ever see a film, or anything else for that matter with the name Chris Kattan attached, gather your sensibilities and run in the opposite direction. Alternately, find an axe and let rip against the offending article. Better yet, hunt down Chris Kattan and let rip with an axe against him personally. Am I recommending you perform acts of physical violence against another human being? No, I am not.

Because Chris Kattan is not human. Just look at his face. He looks like the bastard inbred lovechild of David Duchovny and a llama.

And he’s not funny. Shit no. Don’t let the fact that this DVD sits within the comedy genre fool you. I Spit On Your Grave is more of a comedy than Corky Romano. You see, for a movie to be a comedy, it must, by definition, contain comedy. It must make you laugh. You should at the very least, chuckle lightly, and maybe elicit an occasional “...hmph”. The best this film could do was occasionally make me think “that could have been a funny moment in another film”. I tallied these moments. If someone more generous than me was watching, at best it would have a “Laugh to Minute Ratio” of 1:20. That’s one possible laugh every twenty minutes. At best. To improve that ratio, to say, 1:14, you would need to have a “Beer per Minute Ratio” of at least 2.5:5. That’s two and a half beers for every five minutes of film. If you make it as far as 50 minutes into the film, you would have had 25 beers, laughed three and a half times and hopefully passed out from alcohol poisoning.

Of course, being a modern person, with a belief in free will, money to burn and a spare 86 minutes, you may choose to ignore my warnings and proceed with hiring this DVD from your local rentatorium - or even worse, buying it. If that is the case, you’re an idiot, but let us now take a look at the transfer and extras.

  Video
Contract

Crap film, non-crap picture. You’d think that would depress me, wouldn’t you? It doesn’t. If you’re one of the few goofballs that actually like this film, then I’m just happy that you get a decent transfer for your bucks. You deserve it. You work hard for your money, unless you stole it from your mum’s purse, in which case you’re a thieving scumbag. Moving beyond moral judgements, we see that the 1.85:1 aspect ratio picture has 16x9 enhancement, and barring the shoddily shot and lit look of much of it, comes up looking quite fine for such a lame-o film. Colours are fine with a mostly natural palette punctuated with the occasional splash of colour. Detail is good, there’s a little edge enhancement, darker areas are solid if unrevealing when it come to detail and some scenes contain minimal grain which attracts the eye yet isn’t overwhelmingly distracting.

  Audio
Contract

The English track is a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix at 384kbps. Typical of these quick production multiplex pleasing extended skit films is the bright and slightly harsh nature of the audio, which is noticeable when compared against productions of higher quality, but is par for the course for this type of dreck. Dialogue is all loud and clear, because for some reason they want you to hear everything that’s said in the script. Apparently this is part of a programme to stamp out the word “whadidhesay?” from teenage cinema audiences worldwide. With the effects and such the results are the same, with a loud and clear use of the channels and a bit of sound directed to the rears whenever they wanted to enhance the minor noisy bits like gunshots and explosions. There's nothing spectacular here, but nothing really wrong either.

  Extras
Contract

And then I had to sit through the extra features. Let’s just say that I’m thankful they’re so brief. There’s one Featurette: All Access Corky Romano, which is 12 minutes of pain as we watch them shoot a scene that isn’t funny in the film, and is even less funny seeing it shot and knowing how much stuff they cut out of it. There are two Extended Scenes which are, oh I don’t know, what’s the word I’m looking for... “crap”? The first one isn’t even an extended scene, it’s more an alternate scene really, but I reckon they couldn’t have been bothered making an extra menu screen for just one pitiful scene, so they lumped it with the actual pitiful extended scene and called it a day. The last extra is a Sneak Peek (it’s just a trailer) of a film called High Heels and Low Lifes. This trailer also plays upon loading the disc.

  Overall  
Contract

Please feel free to disagree with me, but this film really is rubbish. It’s not like I wanted to hate it or anything. Quite the opposite really. I want more comedies in my collection. I could use a few more laughs in my films. I really wish Corky Romano wasn’t such a stinking pile of monkey vomit. But it is. It really, really is. And everybody knows it. The producers, the director, the actors, the scriptwriter, the studio, the distributors, the guy who delivers the DVD to the shops - everybody. You just know they all feel like cheap whores for having been involved in this project. Make them get down on their knees and beg for your forgiveness.

But, like I said before, for those of you that do like the film, then other than the poor extras selection, the quality of the sound and picture are quite good and are sure to please most of you, even if your taste in films sucks.


  • LINK: http://www.dvd.net.au/review.cgi?review_id=1724
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      And I quote...
    "I really wish Corky Romano wasn’t such a stinking pile of monkey vomit. But it is."
    - Vince Carrozza
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Sony DVP-525
    • Receiver:
          Sony STR-DB1070
    • Speakers:
          Wharfedale s500
    • Centre Speaker:
          Polk Audio CS245
    • Surrounds:
          Wharfedale s500
    • Subwoofer:
          DB Dynamics TITAN
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          standard s-video
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