JERRY MAGUIRE

Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
Special Edition 2-DVD Set, $27.95

Jerry Maguire is an unscrupulous sports agent who is ambitious to a fault.  After losing his prestigious job at one of the world's largest sports management firms and his girlfriend, Jerry finds himself at a low point in his life.  However, Jerry bounces back both personally and professionally with help from a single mother and a loyal pro football client.  Jerry Maguire stars Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr., Renee Zellweger, Kelly Preston, Jerry O'Connell, Jay Mohr and Bonnie Hunt.  Written and directed by Cameron Crowe, the movie is rated R and features an approximate running time of 139 minutes.           

The movie is presented in an anamorphic widescreen version (1.85:1).  The overall quality of the transfer is very good.  Images are clean and colors are rich with fully saturated hues.  There is nice contrast and deep black levels.  Picture defect mastering is excellent with no major flaws or digital compression artifacts.

Video Rating: 8 out of 10

The following spoken language options are available for the movie: English Dolby Digital 5.1 and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese Dolby 2.0 channel surround.  The following written tracks are available: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai subtitles, and English closed captions.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track is the basis for this review. The overall soundtrack mix predominantly favors the forward channels.  Dialogue is always intelligible and natural sounding.  The surround channels are mostly subdued, used for both ambient sound effects and music, and include a couple of split rear effects.  The LFE channel is moderately active and features crisp, tight bass.

Audio Rating: 7 out of 10

The tactile sound effects are average and are present in roughly half of the DVD's 28 chapters.  Subtle to moderate impacts are the types of tactile effect that can be experienced on this disc and they originate almost exclusively from the music soundtrack.

Tactile Sound Effects Rating: 5 out of 10

Bonus features include an audio and video commentary with Cameron Crowe, Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Renee Zellweger; 5 deleted scenes with optional commentary; rehearsal footage with optional commentary; "How to be a Sports Agent featurette; Secret Garden music video; Rod Tidwell commercial; making-of featurette; Jerry Maguire's mission statement; theatrical trailers; photo gallery; filmographies; production notes; DVD-ROM content; scene access and interactive menus.

Bonus Features Rating: 8 out of 10

Reference equipment used for this review: [DVD player- Pioneer Elite DV-37; HDTV Monitor- Pioneer SD532HD5; A/V Receiver- Pioneer Elite VSX33TX; Speakers- BIC America V636 5.1 Channel Configuration; Tactile Transducers- Clark Synthesis TST329F]