Adam Sandler plays Archie Moses, a man who works for drug lord Frank Colton (James Caan). Rock Keats (Damon Wayans) is Archie’s best friend and, secretly I might add, an undercover cop who’s trying to infiltrate Colton’s business. Archie, as per the typical earlier Sandler role, is completely oblivious to anything going on around him and doesn’t suspect Rock. Keats is ready to infiltrate Colton, but is mistakenly shot in the head by Archie. Keats, after learning to walk again, realizes Archie must testify against Col…on. Will this two meet up and work together or will fate finally come around and destroy both of them?
Ask anyone around me and they’ll tell you that I’m not the biggest fan of Sandler’s earlier work. While most seem to love his early comedic work like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, I find these films to be his worst. They aren’t funny and simply lack any real charm. In all honesty, I had never seen Bulletproof before this viewing. Well, the end result was kind of mixed. I found the film had a few funny, charming moments (mostly from Caan and a few from Sandler/Wayans), but too much of the film tried to be serious in a comedic tone, which rarely works.
So I will say this, Bulletproof is Sandler’s best earlier film. Unlike his previous aforementioned films that are actually insulting, this one is somewhat enjoyable and wasn’t as bad as I expected. It’s just a sad sign to see that Sandler, who is actually a fine actor today, actually made such poor film choices early in his career.
Video
Presented in a 1080p, VC-1 Encoded, 1:85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, Bulletproof has a perfectly commendable transfer in that it’s nothing that great, but nothing that bad either.
Color usage was decent enough, but a majority of the colors lacked a real overall spark. Blacks seemed kind of crushed with many of the darker sequences looking quite poor. Detail was okay as well, but again lacked a real quality spark. I noticed, particularly in the brighter sequences, a real EE presence that became quite distracting sometimes. Sure this is the best Bulletproof has ever looked, but I can only imagine how many of these catalogue titles would look if the prints were actually completely re-mastered.
Audio
Arriving with the standard Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 audio track, Bulletproof has audio that’s similar to the video in that it’s nothing great, but nothing that bad either.
So this is a comedy film and naturally dialogue sounded clean and clear, which is a huge positive. Surround usage was absent except for a few sequences where I noticed a few discrete effects (mostly during the sequence where Archie mistakenly shoots Rock). Bass was active here and there, but mostly was kept to a quiet minimum. Overall this is a good enough audio track, but one can’t really expect that much out of a comedic audio experience.
Special Features
This one is completely devoid of any features, which is a big disappointment.
Final Thoughts
As an HD DVD release, fans will definitely like this one as it showcases the film in a manner that is easily the best it has ever been shown in. The video and audio is just fine for the material at hand, but never climbs higher than just fine. A huge disappointment is the complete lack of features, which I suppose one can say is understandable as the previous DVD release of the film contained nothing, but that’s just saying that studios should contain releasing films completely devoid of features. In the end, if you’re not a fan of this film or of Sandler at all, skip this, as there isn’t much to be found here.
