Go - Deluxe Collector's Edition

I like a good movie. If you can give me the lives of multiple people and show me how they interact with each other in a unique way then you're bound to get my attention and my appreciation for your product.

Go is one such movie. You could best compare it to Pulp Fiction whereby it showcases 3 different events from the perspective of 3 (or 4) different individuals. The only difference is that the 3 stories here are different perspectives with the usual common events to tie them all together. Without going into too much detail I'll try to put some oils to the canvas and paint some sort of semblance of the plot.

The first story is about Ronna (Sarah Polley) who works as a checkout chick. She is about to be evicted from her home when her Irish friend Simon (Desmond Askew) offers her his shift. He is then able to go to Vegas with his friends and she has a chance to make up the extra money she needs to save the roof over her head. Up to the counter arrive Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) who were expecting to see Simon to score some drugs. Ronna takes on the responsibility of supplying the drugs and finds herself in a ditch after a nasty hit and run.

Secondly we travel with Simon. After leaving Ronna with his offer we catch up with Simon in the boot of a car on his way to Las Vegas with his friends. He's borrowed the credit card of his drug dealer Todd (Timothy) and soon ventures off to have some fun with his friends. A ferrari and an incident at a strip club later sees them on the run from a pissed off father and son duo.

Finally we have Zack and Adam. They've been blackmailed by police officer Burke to try and sting Simon the drug dealer to find who his dealer is. When the sting doesn't go as planned, Burke invites the boys home to have some of his wifes x-mas cooking. Things get a little weird when some gay connotations pop up but the guys make it out in time to head of to tonights xmas rave party.

All stories come together smoothly as we are given snippets of their interleaving with one-another. I can't mention any more of the plot without telling you the whole story but rest assured it's very entertaining indeed.

This disc is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphically enhanced presentation. Like other presentations from Columbia, this one is of a good quality. With an obviously lower budget than other blockbuster movies, the quality of the print shows up as being inferior. There's inherent grain in some scenes but I would consider it a detriment on the whole.

Everything else is up to standard for dvd. Black levels are fine, although they could be a little more dynamic, Shadow detail is fine, aliasing is not a problem, color saturation is variable from scene to scene with some scenes that look bland suddenly showcasing deep colors.

The layer change occurs at 70:33 and is a longer pause than I'm used to. Actually, it was very obvious given that I haven't noticed many of late.

Audio is not quite up to the standard of other 5.1 soundtracks. It's no action flick but there is some appropriate use of the full 5.1 channel spectrum. Dialogue is clear throughout the entire movie.

There is a nice rock soundtrack associated with the movie and you'll find alot of the songs on the Austin Powers 2 soundtrack. Songs such as American Woman and Magic Carpet ride pop up in both the movie and the extras. The music tends to make use of the entire front soundstage and filters into the surrounds aswell.

Audio sync is not an issue and is fine all the way through the movie.

Another title from the Deluxe Collector's Edition so let's take a look at what's included:

• Slightly Animated menus - not through all the menus but the ones that are are pretty spiffy indeed.
• Audio COmmentary - by director Doug Liman and editor Stephen Mirrione. They go into some nice detail about their casting choices, their adventures with getting certain scenes through the distributors, which scenes were ad libbed, which didn't follow the script in terms of editing etc etc etc. It's a nice commentary with plenty of insight but they talk too long on some things and end up speaking through other key scenes that you'd like to hear about.
• 14 deleted scenes - These are a mixture of alternate and deleted scenes. Each scene is a chapter in itself and my favorite has to be chapter 5 where the adlibbing is at its peak.
• Theatrical Trailer - It's fun to see this trailer after watching the directors commentary and hearing about there editing practises to see how some key scenes are promoted differently and some dubbing is done to throw us off what is really being said.
• 3 music videos - All presented in full frame 2 channel stereo we get to see "New" by No Doubt, "Magic Carpet Ride" by Philip Stier featuring Steppenwolf and "Steal My Sunshine" by LEN. Magic Carpet Ride has the main actors from the movie performing in the video clip.
• Talent Profiles - Your usual fare with dvds of late.
• Featurette - This is a compilation of behind the scenes footage, interviews with the cast, final cuts from the movie, trailer styled presentation and voice over from the director.

I really enjoyed this movie. I enjoyed it more than Pulp Fiction but then again I wasn't a big fan of the Pulp to begin with.

If you're after a black comedy, some action, a cool story and a handful of todays young stars then you've found the right disc.