A Beautiful Mind - Special Edition
Universal Home Entertainment   -   2001   -   136 minutes

Reviewed by Thor van Lingen

Review Date: July 14, 2002

FOR STARTERS

PHOTO GALLERY Paranoid

If you ever needed proof that Hollywood is a huge �who you know� enterprise, you need only inspect the credits from A Beautiful Mind to all but convince yourself of that fact. In this case, it is taking proven combinations of winners and making yet another hit movie. Ron Howard finally gets recognized with Oscar gold for telling the story of the brilliant yet disturbed Nobel prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr. Getting dragged along for the ride are Howard�s familiar producer Brian Grazer and frequently consulted composer James Horner. If there�s such a thing as going to the well one too many times, these guys haven�t done it yet. Throw in one of the most considerable talents in the business today in Russell Crowe, and you have an impressive formula for success.

Crowe does what he has been doing best lately, and that is give fantastic acting performances. Having been nominated for acting gold three years running and winning for Gladiator in 2001, Russell truly becomes John Nash. From grand gestures like raging fits of schizophrenia to subtle facial gestures and meaningful glances, Crowe certainly does a good job of sucking the audience into the world of his mental instability. Not to be outdone in her Oscar-winning performance is Jennifer Connelly who shines as the strong, intelligent, supportive wife Alicia. There are a few defining scenes for her as an actress that are truly a pleasure to watch, and help reinforce why she takes home the trophy of all trophies for her role.

The story of A Beautiful Mind follows John Nash from his early days as a graduate student at Princeton, to his days as a professor at one of the most prestigious technical schools in the country in MIT, through his developing illness and eventual receiving of the Nobel Prize. Along the way, he meets his aforementioned wife, who doesn�t seem to mind his apparent lack of general social skills or refinements. The beauty of her performance comes in the way she deals with how her husband�s �black ops� job helping the Pentagon crack Russian codes almost tears them apart. An overbearing DOD agent, played to tyrannical splendor by Ed Harris, recruits Nash to do this top-secret work. Not able to separate fantasy from reality at times, Nash alienates his wife and their young son early on as a result of this employment.

The devil is in the details on this one, and it is really worth owning. Just watching Russell Crowe�s attention to detail and Jennifer Connelly�s vibrant, true-to-life performance is really worth the price of admission alone. Despite all of the negative press this movie got between its theatrical release and the Oscar ceremonies, it is hard not to like this story of triumph over one�s own psyche. Watching people and events that have helped define who you are unravel like a baseball with its cover torn off is a tough process to direct, and Ron Howard does an amazing job.

VIDEO

A very nice video transfer in total, A Beautiful Mind has nice deep colors at its disposal. The warmth of the wood tones and the soft peach/orange hue in the early Princeton scenes are sufficient eye candy for this viewer. There is good use of light and shadow with the restaurant proposal sequence and the code-breaking shed at the Nash home both standing out. The subdued flicker of candle and incandescent light sources play very well off of realistic skin tones throughout. The patterns that show up intermittently within the movie give us a nice feel of how Nash�s world looks through his eyes, particularly the flashes of light that help expose what he sees, like the text of enemy codes leaping off the page. Outside of another misplaced layer switch and some minor edge enhancement in the higher contrast scenes, the video transfer is very solid.

AUDIO

Another unyielding 5.1 presentation, A Beautiful Mind does all the things you would expect from the format. There is acceptably good right/left separation, and shrapnel scenes like the desk that �falls� out the window provide for satisfactory aural enjoyment. With another brilliant score from James Horner (brought back from collaborating with Howard on Apollo 13 among numerous others), the percussion-based anthem also has a haunting triangle that pierces the low and mid-range effects with astonishing clarity. Things like Nash�s inner monologue also test your rear speakers like the factory test tone on your amplifier. Faint background effects like birds, bar noises, and campus grumblings are available for your enjoyment. All are sufficiently supported by a boomy-when-necessary performance from the subwoofer.

SUPPLEMENTS

This is a two-disc deluxe set that is actually worthy of the packaging. The menu is simple but clean, and the second disc is truly loaded with �stuff�. Disc one has all of your normal accoutrements, including special features like deleted scenes (with or without commentary), as well as the ability to watch the whole feature with similar supplemental insight. The second disc has pretty much everything you can think of to put on a DVD. There isn�t that extra nugget or prize on here that makes it an award-winning DVD, but the producers certainly gave it a lot of thought and provided a lot of content. The nice touch that I did notice and appreciate were the actual footage from Nash�s Nobel ceremony, as well as back stage footage from the Oscars. There are also plenty of special effects shots that are explained if not demonstrated and give the viewer some behind the scenes information.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A very clean DVD with noteworthy video and engaging audio make A Beautiful Mind a beautiful DVD to have adding some Nobel-level class to your collection. A two-disc volume actually worth the second platter, Ron Howard wanted to and succeeded in making a very complete DVD.