MGM Studios DVD presents

All Revved Up (1997)

Johnny: You love her?
Sean: No, not int he way you mean.
Johnny: You wanna have sex with her?
Sean: No.
Johnny: Well, I do.
Sean: Just like that?
Johnny: Yeah.
- Johnny (John Turturro) and Sean (Will Patton)

Stars: John Turturro, Lilly Taylor, Will Patton
Other Stars: John Spencer, Joe Maher, Richard Bright, Paul Calderon
Director: Brandon Cole

Manufacturer: laser Pacific
MPAA Rating: R for (language, some violence, and a scene of sexuality)
Run Time: 01h:25m:44s
Release Date: 2001-06-12
Genre: action

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
C	D	C-	B-	F

 

DVD Review

This past February I wrote in my review of the Tom Berenger, Stephen Baldwin, and Dennis Rodman movie, Cutaway that the thought of those three in the same film made me seriously ill. To my surprise, the picture was a moderately enjoyable B-grade action film with some, though not many, interesting moments. With Brandon Cole's All Revved Up, I had the exact opposite reaction as I took a look at the cover art. This is a movie with the talents of John Turturro, Lili Taylor, and Will Patton that should, by all accounts, be a wonderfully acted and well-made film. Sadly, this is not so: All Revved Up is a mess beyond belief.

At the start, Rachel (Taylor) is in the midst of an automobile breakdown at a red light. Naturally, her next step is to take the car to a garage near her apartment and have it fixed. Unfortunately, the garage is a front for stolen cars and scam artists who claim to have fixed the vehicles but actually only demand money for services never performed. Since Rachel relies on her car to take her to and from her job as a schoolteacher she leaves it with the mechanics, only to be taken time and again by the crooked businessmen.

When she isn't fretting over her car trouble, Rachel maintains a nice, although strange, relationship with her neighbor Sean (Patton) whose has some oddball ways. He keeps a job as a writer and in his spare time has a strange fascination with his pet lizards. The third member of this group of friends is Johnny (Turturro), a welder who is shy on the inside yet all talk on the outside. Throughout the course of the film the three meet with unexpected romance and a small amount of danger as they attempt to right the wrongs done by the crooked mechanics.

Director Brandon Cole wants his film to be a lot of things: a thriller with the mob and crooked mechanics, a romance between three lonely people, and a comedy about the bonds of friendship. Cole does create a sweet-natured, offbeat story, yet his script fails to give reason to many of the scenes. Plot threads are left hanging and the potential romances between Sean and a female bartender and Johnny's fascination with a bank teller never go anywhere. With the cast featured, one would expect the performances to be great, and they are; the poor script leads one to wonder just how much better they could have been.

I suppose that my opinion of All Revved Up would be different if the cover art by MGM didn't advertise the picture in a way totally opposite of the film itself. Far from being an action film, it is more of a character picture, yet the art on the cover eerily resembles the recent Gone In 60 Seconds with cars speeding between the faces of the stars. Even the tagline that states "They're giving the bad guys a run for their money" has little to do with the plot. Had I seen this film without a preconceived idea of the story I may have enjoyed it, yet in the end it is frustrating to see a picture so mislabeled.



Rating for Style: C
Rating for Substance: D

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.85:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: Presented in a non-anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect ration, the transfer by MGM fails to impress. The largest fault of the image is that the use of reds shows excessive bleeding, particularly in chapters 8 and 12, with taillights and candles respectively. Other problems include numerous scratches and specks of dirt on the transfer, along with a green tint that, while maybe intentional, is often distracting. On the plus side, the muted grays and blacks look fine, and little pixelation was noticed.

Image Transfer Grade: C-
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	yes

Audio Transfer Review: Presented in Dolby 2 channel surround, All Revved Up fails to live up to its title in the audio department. Only the score and dialogue are heard throughout the film with no use of the rear surrounds. Dialogue is clean with nice depth and clarity, while the score has nice fidelity and sounds fine coming out of the left and right speakers.

Audio Transfer Grade: B- 

Disc Extras

Static menu
Scene Access with 24 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, French, Spanish with remote access
Packaging: Amaray
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extras Review: Nothing is offered in the way of extra features.

Extras Grade: F
 

Final Comments

While my judgement is clouded by the false advertising, the film still isn't very good. It is incoherent with no real direction or purpose, and only the strength of a few performances save All Revved Up from being a total waste. From a technical standpoint, the DVD fails to be any better, the video is on the bad side of marginal and the soundtrack and extras are nearly nonexistent. Not recommended.

Kevin Clemons 2001-08-10