UNLEASHED

Directed by Louis Leterrier
Written by Luc Besson
Cinematography by Pierre Morel
Martial Arts Choreography by Yuen Wo Pinggraphy
Music by Massive Attack
Cast: Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskin & Kerry Condon

2005/102 mins/Color/DTS
2.35:1 anamorphic/English/France/NTSC Region 1

Review from Universal DVD

Bob Hoskin (of WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT) is a ruthless crime boss who goes around town collection debts. But he's not alone... he has his own personal dog, Danny (Jet Li). When Uncle Bart (Hoskin) takes off the collar from Danny's neck, the later becomes a brutal killing machine. One day after collecting some of his clients, Uncle Bart and his crew are hit by a truck leaving them for dead. As the wanders around the city, Danny meets for a second time an old and blind piano tuner by the name of Sam (Morgan Freeman). And like every old and blind piano tuner would do, he offers Danny hospitality. Now Danny discover the real world and how it is to be a human being. But good 'ol Uncle Bart is still alive... and looking for his dog.

Coming from Luc Besson, this is yet another one of these filom where an innoicent soul is manipulated by a sadistic older figure for evil deeds. Director Louis Leterrier, who gave us THE TRANSPORTER, delivered a fast paced, MTV-edit, martial movie with some rather lame drama in between. During most of the fights, the camera moves so fast that we can barely see any of the hits... making the fights ultimately boring and uninteresting. In the end, despite a good cast, the movie fails miserably. You'll find yourself wondering why instead you didn't watched TOM YUM GOONG. Especially when the "ultimate" kiling machine known as Danny the dog becomes a fun loving, ice cream eating kid... pathetic!

Universal released UNLEASHED on DVD in a 2.35:1 anamorphic aspect ratio. The movie looks very good with great color saturation, some intented grain and no compression or artifacts. The 5.1 Doldy Digital and DTS tracks, both in English, are nicely mixed and deliver the goods. English, Spanish and French subtitles are available. To make things a little confusing, both the extended and unrated edition are available on this DVD. For the purpose of this review I watched the Unrated version. Now I missed the movie during its theatrical run but from what I heard, the Unrated edition isn't much different then the theatrical one.

In the extra department, Universal could have done much better. "Director Louis Leterrier: Unleashed" is a very short 5 minutes interview with the director. "Serve No Master" is a lame 10 minutes featurette consisting mostly of scenes from the film and a few quotes from Li, Freeman and Hoskin. "The Collar Comes Off: Behind The Scenes" is another another featurette filled mostly with scenes directly from the movie. We also get the music video for Massive Attack's "Atta Boy" and The RZA's "Unleash Me". The disc also contains previews for CRY_WOLF and the CARLITO'S WAY prequel. Finally, the movie is separated in 20 chapters, features nicely designed animated menus, with an inlay card, in a keep case with itself comes in a special embossed paperboard package.

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Review by Kim Dubuisson. All Right Reserved. 2006. ©