Three To Tango

Three To Tango – well to get this out of the way, it has nothing to do with dancing. The original story was based upon writer Rodney Varraco’s own confusing experience. That was back in 1990. The writers stuck with their script and continually received rejection from many producers. That was until producers Jeffrey Silver and Bobby Newmyer (producers of Addicted To Love) joined the project. They grabbed the talents of Neve Campbell (The Scream Trilogy, Wild Things) and TV Favourite from Friends, Matthew Perry.

Oscar Novak (Matthew Perry) and his business partner Peter Steinberg (Oliver Platt) pitch for a $90 million job. Oscar is straight, but Peter is gay. The contractor Charles Newman (Dylan McDermott) has a wife, and a mistress (Neve Campbell). Charles thinks that his mistress might be cheating on him, and asks Oscar, whom he thinks is gay, to keep an eye on her. But Oscar falls for her which creates problems as everyone thinks that he is gay.

So there’s the general story and it unfolds using clever, witty and dirty humour. It is definitely a laugh out loud comedy in parts, but throughout the whole film you will be giggling yourself. Campbell really shines in this film, and her role is a huge contrast to the secluded Sidney in the Scream movies, and really boasts her range as an actress. Perry is also brilliant, and he really suits the part and adds to the humour of the movie not just through line delivery but also through facial expressions and actions, that Perry can articulately do.

Generally, the 1.78:1 widescreen presentation is a delight to watch, with incredibly bright colours and a very clean transfer. However, the reds seem to be very saturated and suffer occasionally from bleeding. Skin tones are very lifelike, but just in places too much rouge or bright red lipstick on Campbell detracts from the realism of the image. The presentation of the feature is 16x9 enhanced, which has become a standard from Village Roadshow. During the feature there is occasionally some grain, but nothing that is overly distracting from the action.

The layer change at 51:30 is very neat, and occurs during a quiet part of the movie, when there is no background noise. I have had the occasional problem with this disc, when at the layer change, it skips forward about one minute to the next chapter instead of carrying on directly after the layer change. I am not sure if this is a fault in the disc or in the player, but still it occurs occasionally and randomly. However, the downside to this layer change is that its timing is smack bang in the middle of one of the dramatic scenes of the film, and the brief pause in sound can be a distraction.

The soundtrack is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is very clear throughout the movie. The rear channels are used only for music and the effects such as thunder or rain. It is a little disappointing to have the channels only used this extent, and the dialogue coming straight from the front. The dialogue is audible for most of the movie, but occasionally Campbell’s words are lost and with nearly every line from Platt, words are slurred and unfortunately lost. At some moments you feel like you want ‘rewind’ and turn on the subtitles to get the joke.

The opening sequence is the start of the fantastic score, which uses many jazz songs and also new orchestrated music from Graeme Revell. The jazzy music really adds to the atmosphere of the movie, and it builds energy during the opening credits. Likewise, after the movie, there is action in the credits featuring another song with the same style as the title sequence.

The extras consist of a theatrical trailer in the same 1.78:1 widescreen aspect, and suffer from incredibly poor colour, even worse than the feature. The reds are very bright and stark, and the other colours are very dull. Other than that, the trailer really tells the story of the film to a great deal of success.

The other two so-called special features are Cast and Crew notes which are very brief and uninformative, and a long list of Production Notes which are quite informative.

The film is quite enjoyable and worth a watch. It appears to be a cheap, childish comedy from the trailer, but is a well constructed, laugh out loud comedy. The extra features are disappointing, but still the rest of the transfer makes up for that. The video is really easy to watch, and nice and bright overall, and the soundtrack is a delight to listen to.