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Delta Farce
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Pat Pilon (16th October 2007). |
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The Film
 The movie starts with Larry, the Cable Guy. His nice, slim, hot, blonde girlfriend comes to visit him at the restaurant where he works and confesses to him that she's pregnant. From that point on, I knew exactly what the punchline would be. As I watched Larry talk and talk, profess his love to this girl and even propose to her, I wished I were watching something else. This is the joke with the most wit, intelligence and forethought in the entire movie. The movie has as much to do with the Chuck Norris movie of the similar name as you might think. At least they mention the guy. I really don't want to spend a lot of time talking about this movie because, honestly, the least said about the movie, the better. It's really old, really stupid and really low-brow. The movie is about three moron friends (reservists in the army) that find themselves in Mexcio, but they think they're in Iraq because on their way to Iraq, the car they're sitting in inside the plane gets dumped out of the plane (because, you know, everybody goes from the US to Iraq by going to Mexico first). I suppose the more intellectual of you will point out that the stupid characters getting everything mixed up, confusing Mexicans for Arabs and tacos for Arabian food, represent the average, ignorant American. There's a difference between being ignorant and being stupid. Not only that, stars Larry, the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall have made their standup careers based on their appeal to blue-collar workers. Now, if the movie shows these two guys as idiots, the movie may end up insulting the people it's trying to entertain. Now, at the risk of insulting everybody, I'll say that Larry the Cable Guy, Mr. Engvall and DJ Qualls are not the best actors. They don't seem to be trying all that much, and everything comes off as being amateurish. The comedy is not very funny, it's just silly predictable. The directing is simple and the action sequences are nothing special. The best part of the movie is the closing credits. Not because it's the end of the movie (well, also because of that), but because you get to hear Carlos Santana's 'Oye Como Va'.
Video
1.85:1 widescreen. The first thing you notice is how soft the picture is. Faces don't have all the wrinkles they should, hair doesn't have the separation it should and the whole picture lacks some definition. Everything looks every so slightly out-of-focus for a lot of the shots. Oh, yeah, and small specks pop up here and there throughout the movie. On the bright side, the colours are accurate and the contrast is very good. They're very nice and give the movie a nice, earthy feel. The movie also has a fine film of grain, which gives the thing a very nice movie feel. The flick looks okay, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't show off what hi-def is capable of.
Audio
There are two audio tracks to choose from, both in English: a PCM 7.1 (6.1 mbps) and a Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (640 kbps) track. Whichever track you choose, you should be happy. Well, that depends on if you want a clear dialogue or not. Here, you get clear dialogue from the centre. You get nice explosions with a nice kick from the subwoofer. You get some good use of the back speakers during the attack sequences. The effects during the gunfights can be a bit haphazard, with bullets flying around in spots they may not need to be, but it's not a bad track, overall. English and Spanish subtitles are available for the movie.
Extras
Lionsgate was really nice to this movie despite its rather dud-like performance at the box office. First up is an audio commentary by director CB Harding. Mr. Harding does a very nice job with the commentary and, apart from the Danny Trejo featurette, this is the best thing on the disc. He likes his movie and he's proud of it. He talks about the locations and the script changes and the decisions made on set to try to make the movie better. He says the movie had a 29-day shoot, which is quite telling. He also has a few funny stories, most notably about Larry the Cable Guy's eating habits. This is a very nice and informative track. If you like the movie, you'll enjoy this. Even if you don't like the movie too much, you might enjoy this. After that you can watch a bunch of Featurettes, which add up to about 29 1/2 minutes. This section has six featurettes. First is 'Hacienda Confidential' (4:47), where the three stars answer questions about, for example, who would be the worst soldier, who had the worst discipline and such. Second is 'All the Way to... LA?' (8:09), where the cast and director talk about working around LA and the commute from home to work. 'The Queen of Mean Gets the Last Word' (3:57) is next, and you hear Mr. Engvall's wife talking about her big, pivotal, 13-second scene in the movie. Kind of funny. Fourth is 'The Man Behind Carlos Santana' (7:31) and is easily the most interesting thing about the entire disc. Danny Trejo talks about his life and how he got into the movie business. The filmmakers should have made a movie out of his life instead of this movie. 'Mr. Chili: Too Hot for TV!'* (3:23) has ventriloquist Jeff Dunham (and Mr. Chilli and Walter) talking about the stand-up scene in the movie. This is pretty funny. The last one is 'The Men of Delta Farce Salute the Troops!'* (1:41) and has, once again, the three stars. This time they're thanking the troops for fighting for freedom and suchlike. You can watch a few Deleted Scenes* next. These add very little to the movie and it's a strange reason to know why they were even shot. The scenes are pretty self-explanatory and are 'Larry Gets Promoted' (0:54), 'Larry Gets Fired' (1:07), 'Bill Likes Junior' (0:39) (Junior would be a car), 'Fun with Teargas' (0:35) (this is the best cut scene) and 'Find Your Moment' (0:43), which is pretty pointless. The movie is helped by the scenes being outside of it. There's also a Gag Reel* (8:23) called 'White People Are Funny'. This is about as entertaining as the movie. Actually, it's probably a bit more funny simple because it doesn't follow any script. You see everybody messing up their lines, forgetting their lines and laughing at other people missing their lines. If you like the movie, you'll get a real kick out of this. It's a bit less than 8 ½ minutes long. The last couple of extra to finish off the disc are a Photo Gallery* and some Bonus Trailers for Lionsgate. The photos are nice moments from the movie, or rather, as nice as can be expected from this movie. 'Employee of the Month' (2:21), 'Lord of War' (2:13) and 'Ultimate Avengers 2' (1:39) are here. These are also start-up trailers.
Overall
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