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Escape Artist (The) (TV)
R2 - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Samuel Scott (24th November 2013). |
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The Film
 ***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Will Burton (David Tennant), a talented junior barrister of peerless intellect and winning charm, specialises in spiriting people out of tight legal corners, hence his nickname – The Escape Artist. Much to the aggravation of his courtroom rival, Maggie Gardner (Sophie Okonedo), Will is in high demand, as he has never lost a case. But when Will’s talents acquit Liam Foyle (Toby Kebbell), who is standing trial for an horrific and high-profile murder, that courtroom brilliance comes back to bite him. Foyle walks free, but he is a serial killer and surely it is only a matter of time until he kills again. Also starring Ashley Jensen, this is thrilling action drama at its best.
Video
In the last year or so, Acorn Media have released a lot of the BBC's latest television dramas, and as per their usual standards, the video quality here is consistently strong - which is to be expected for such a new BBC production. The mini-series has been presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and it has been anamorphically enhanced. My only real concern during the entirety of the three hour long episodes, was that sometimes shadow detail did appear to be lacking. Detail elsewhere was as strong as can be expected by DVD, and perhaps the way we are all getting used to the high quality of high definition, we sometimes feel underwhelmed by things such as shadow detail on the standard definition releases. Still, skin tones appear to be correct, and the detail in facial close-ups and on background items is good. There are no real striking problems, and absolutely no sign of damage such as scratches or dust. An overall solid presentation. The disc is PAL, and region 2 encoded.
Audio
Acorn have provided a single audio track here: - English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo It's a solid representation of the television broadcast with moderate channel separation and clear and concise dialogue. As should be expected, there's no signs of any damage to the track such as dropouts or scratches, and I noticed no background hiss. English subtitles have been provided and are optional.
Extras
All extras are housed on the second disc of this set. We start off the extras with a selection of interviews with various members of the cast and crew: - Play All (76:06) - producer Paul Frift (8:04) - producer Hilary Bevan Jones (7:41) - legal advisor Andrew Jeffries QC (3:25) - Ashley Jensen (8:26) - Toby Kebbell (3:08) - Roy Marsden (1:39) - Sophie Okonedo (6:56) - David Tennant (14:32) - director Brian Welsh (9:02) - screenwriter David Wolstencroft (13:07) This is a surprisingly strong selection of interviews for a TV release, and manages to cover many of the necessary bases. The producers talk about how the project came together, the director talks about the filming and overall production, and the cast talk about their characters and how they fit into the overall scheme of things. We even get a small interview dedicated to the legal advisor, which is an interesting little piece. Next we have some B-Roll footage: - Play All (12:21) - Day 1 (3:20) - Day 2 (2:54) - Day 3 (2:14) - Day 4 (2:02) - Day 5 (1:50) This is average B-Roll material that shows a little behind the scenes footage of the show being filmed. Unfortunately, B-Roll always fails to overly impress without some form of narration or commentary, but it is still a welcome addition. The rest of the extras are self explanatory. Filmographies: - David Tennant (2 pages) - Ashley Jensen (2 pages) - Sophie Okonedo (2 pages) - Toby Kebbell (2 pages) Photo Gallery (1:31)
Overall
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