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Ransom (Special Edition) Customer Reviews (13 - 15 of 23 Reviews)

Pass the time
ENOUGH with the "cat and mouse" expression! Anyway, this is another "Hollywood" movie. Very unrealistic, many times during the movie you will be thinking "that would NEVER happen". The beginning of the movie we see dad and son play around, laugh, and and have fun, as if that is a typical every day for them. (Who hasn't seen that 20 times before?)

This DVD was given a special edition, but I am unsure why. The featurette is boring, 3/4 of it are clips we've just seen from the movie.

Overall, sure it's mildly entertaining if you can ignore how unbelievable it is.

The Big Payoff?
At first glance, director Ron Howard's Ransom, seemed like a pretty solid thriller. However, after seeing it a second time on the special edition DVD, my feelings about it changed somewhat. And then there's those extras.

Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson) is a wealthy airline tycoon. Along with his loving wife Kate (Rene Russo), and their son Sean (Brawley Nolte), they seem to have it all. Things are turned upside down for the family though, when Sean is abducted and held for ransom, by a gruoup of kinappers. Frantic, Tom decides to take matters into his own hands, despite the pleas of his wife and FBI agents, led by agent Lonnie Hawkins (Delroy Lindo). Then, he deal with the consequences of attempting to turn the tables on the kidnappers, and find a way to help get his son back.

Ransom boasts fine perfomances from Gibson and Russo, who carry over their obvious chemistry from the Lethal Weapon films. Lindo is top notch as Hawkins, as is Gary Sinise, playing Detective Shaker. With all this talent in front of the camera, and Howard as a fine director Ransom should still be a better film.The major twist of the story is telegraphed too early. It's bad enough the trailer gives away a minor twist, but, I think it would have been better to keep that secret a bit longer. It kind of takes the suspense of the last act and leaves it muted. Thanks to a solid cast--it's still watchable.

Now to the DVD extras. You would think, after reading the back of the snapper case, that the bonus features would be worthwhile, well, in reality they don't measure up. Take the audio commentary by director Ron Howard, it's fact filled about the production--almost to a fault--it's also lacking any ommff. Having someone else there would have probably helped. The deleted scenes are nothing more than minor snipets of edited material. The "What Would You Do?" featurette is all too brief and doesn't do anything except take up space. The lack of any of the film's cast is noticed and hurts the piece. The "Between Takes" featurette is also short, but at least it's fun to watch. The movie's Internationl trailer and a Touchtone products ad round out the disc.

I wish I could rate Ransom a bit higher but I can't. I would say rent don't buy

MUDDY OLD NON-ANAMORPHIC DVD-DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!
The order page describes this DVD was anamorphic widescreen. It is not. Amazon refuses to make things good. We definitely would not have bought it. Now, we're stuck with it after having sold our original copy for next to nothing. We would have rated this a zero but it wouldn't let us. Two thumbs down to Amazon. I think a class action suit is in order against a business that has no class where their orders are concerned.

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