Review of Junior Bonner

Introduction

Junior Bonner has been described as Sam Peckinpah`s most gentle movie, acclaimed in some quarters and most definitely a far cry from his other work, which includes The Wild Bunch, The Getaway (also featuring McQueen) and the infamous Straw Dogs.

After being injured from being thrown off the bull Sunshine, Bonner travels home to take part in the annual Rodeo, to discover that his father has set his heart on moving to Australia to start afresh. Desperate to help his father achieve his dreams, Bonner sets out to win the top prize, but Sunshine once again stands in his way...

Video

There is nothing more annoying than settling down to watch a film which starts out in 2.35:1 widescreen and then switches to full-frame as soon as the title sequence is over.

Once the irritation of the picture format has passed, the image presented is of variable quality, with some scenes quite grainy and others relatively crisp. In general, the print is free from dirt, although as you would expect from a 29 year old movie, there is the occasional blemish.

Some of the rodeo footage is interesting, but also looks cruel and it is doubtful if a modern day film would get away with some of the scenes of animals being wrestled to the ground. Aside from that, there is some good footage of the cowboys getting thrown from extremely angry horses and bulls - serves them right for being silly enough to get on really!

And to compound my screen ratio woes, as the end credits roll, we switch back to 2.35:1 widescreen.

Grrr!

Audio

I must admit that this disk is the first I`ve seen with a Dolby Digital 3.0 soundtrack - the front left and right stereo pair with a mono rear channel and no centre channel. This leads to a slightly peculiar soundstage!

Dialogue is clear and understandable throughout, however the sound suffers badly from two faults. The first is a wishy-washy high end that sounds overly compressed times, the other being horrid sounding reverb that seems to have been introduced for this DVD sound mix. This is particularly noticeable during a bar-room brawl scene with a deep bass tone unnaturally bouncing from front to rear.

Features

Extras consist of a couple of bios and a gallery.

The film is packaged in a black Amaray case and contains a double-sided insert detailing the 11 chapter breaks.

Conclusion

I said earlier that this was described as Peckinpah`s most gentle movie, I would instead suggest that it is his most uninteresting - I simply could not raise even the faintest sign of excitement when watching this film, and to be honest was delighted when the credits rolled.

Technically the film is good, well made and very well acted, but rodeos are not interesting to anyone outside America, the film doesn`t conjure up any interest in either the characters or the plot, and is far too slow.

The full-frame picture is also very annoying, especially given the title and credit sequences which are in 2.35:1 widescreen. The sound isn`t perfect either, coming in a bizarre format, which unbalances the soundstage, not helped by poor compression and an odd reverb effect at times.

The disc does have a low retail price, but even at £12.99 I struggle to recommend it to anyone other than fans of the film.