Search - Bosworth: Mach 2 on DVD

MPAA Rating: R Movie Release: 2000 DVD Release: 03/13/2001 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 34 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Total Copies: 4 Genres: Action, Action Thriller, Political Thriller

One of America's bravest military men finds himself pushing the limits of his abilities in this action-thriller. Senator Stuart Davis (David Hedison), a U.S. Congressman running for president, is travelling to the Balkins, hoping to speak with political leaders there to stop a civil war that threatens to become a major conflict. While on board, Davis decides to check out a computer disc which was handed to him shortly before his flight took off, and to his surprise, he discovers it contains damning evidence which proves Vice President Pike (Cliff Robertson), who is facing off against Davis in the upcoming election, is the leader of a secret plan to encourage the war in the Balkans so that American arms dealers will be able to sell weapons to both sides. It isn't long before Pike learns that Davis knows his secret and he's willing to use his power and his agents to bring down Davis' flight (and the innocent civilians on board) to cover his tracks. One of Davis' passengers is Capt. Jack Tyree (Brian Bosworth), an Air Force anti-terrorism expert, and it becomes obvious it's up to him to fight off Pike's goons and bring the jetliner safely to the ground. However, there's a catch -- despite his daring, skill, and military training, Tyree has never learned how to fly a plane. Mach 2 also stars Shannon Whirry, Michael Dorn, and Bruce Weitz. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Brian Bosworth
Michael Dorn
Cliff Robertson

=Mach 2's anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer contains nothing particularly impressive or noteworthy. The colors have poor definition and lack the clarity inherent on most digital transfers. The entire transfer is grainy and contains a significant amount of defects on the print. It resembles a mediocre video transfer and adds another element to the problems of this disc.
An irksome problem on this 5.1 channel Dolby Digital transfer is the extremely quiet dialogue. Also, the sound levels vary throughout and require adjusting during the louder action scenes. As with the image transfer, the term "digital" should be used loosely because this sound field lacks most of the qualities of usual DVDs. This disc also contains a 2.0-channel Dolby Surround track that contains less power, but actually is less annoying than the other track because it keeps a more steady sound level.
=Mach 2's only substantial extra is an enjoyable feature-length commentary from director Edward R. Raymond and actress Shannon Whirry. While the nature of this film makes an in-depth discussion impossible, both of them have a lot of fun talking about the picture. Raymond totally understands the tenets of the silly action genre and often mocks his own films. Whirry asks him some fairly stupid questions, but they work because both of them have a nice chemistry. The comments are fairly scene-specific, but they're mildly interesting given the poor level of this film.
This disc also features the theatrical trailer and brief biographies of the main stars and Raymond. ~ Dan Heaton, All Movie Guide