K-9

Released By:

Universal Home Video

Features:

1989; 102 Min; Rated PG-13; Dolby Surround: English, French; Anamorphic Widescreen (1:85).

Extras:

Theatrical Trailer; Production Notes, Cast and Crew Listings.

Review:

Ah, the joys of Hollywood. Whenever someone comes up with a new film or genre, everyone must beat it into the ground. It began with the buddy picture and evolved into the cop buddy picture. Finally near the end of the 80's, we began to receive the cop and dog buddy picture. Sure Disney had the Shaggy D.A., but the time I'll remember is the late 80's.

In 1989, we were smacked with two pictures of the same ilk. There was Tuner And Hooch with Tom Hanks, and Universal's K-9 staring James Belushi and Jerry Lee. Tuner And Hooch has always been held in higher regard, mostly because of Tom Hanks and it's "family friendly" rating of PG. K-9 is still overlooked today, at least much as these types of film can be.

K-9 has one of the simplest plots available. Thomas Dooley (Belushi) is a cop hell bent on bringing down a high society drug dealer. After the drug dealer attempts to kill Dooley in the first five minutes, Dooley needs to get a new car and take on a partner. Dooley also finds out about a drug shipment, and needs to take a police dog to sniff out the drugs, thus enters Jerry Lee. Of course, as with all buddy pictures, Dooley doesn't like his parter at first, but learns to love him. He and Jerry Lee completely bond with each other by the end of the picture.

K-9 is one of those films that was, believe it or not, actually wanted in widescreen by many LD owners. While this title is probably a matted widescreen presentation, a new print was definitely needed. I don't have a 16X9 TV so the picture is probably a little soft due to the down conversion. I haven't had a chance to look at it at work, where I have access to a Elite Pro-700HD TV, but I'll assume it would look sharper. There are the typical film scratches, that I expect from a film which no one figured would need to be taken care off, but overall the picture is decent.

The sound of the disc is nothing to write home about. K-9 is presented in Dolby Surround, so the music is decently mixed, but as with most non 5.1 mixes, the surround channels leave something to be desired. It's not a big deal to me, I'm just happy to have a widescreen print of the film.

The extras features of this disc are the typical toys that Universal puts into their bare bones titles. Which is much more of an effort than Warner seems to be doing right now on their's.  I sense an editorial about the efforts, or lack there of, studios are putting into their extra features. Universal did throw a trailer for Beethoven's 2nd into the director's profile, nice bonus.

The movie is light fun, I'll give it a 6.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the presentation a 6.5, with a partial bonus biscuit for the extra trailer.

Dan Linzmeier, FIT Productions
Fitprod@aol.com
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