This is, I gather, part of a series of documentaries under the wider umbrella of “America Undercover,†and is not the first of the taxicab ones. What we have here is a collection of vignettes as various people hail a cab and, captured by the cab’s security camera, engage in revealing conversations with the driver. Most of these discussions deal with relationships and sex (the guy and his transsexual girlfriend, the guy with the big woman fetish, the guy with a thing for “crazy chicks†and so on). Over the course of the hour, this becomes a little tiresome, and one hopes for a passenger with something else on his/her mind. This moment finally comes in the form of a passenger whose former boyfriend is a firefighter who barely escaped the collapse of the World Trade Center with his life, and her narrative, moving and disturbing, is the highlight of the episode.
Audio
Once again, as with so many documentaries, the audio and video ratings make very little sense, because of the raw nature of the source material. Let’s just say that the transfer itself is fine, and when the music kicks in, the 2.0 effect is nice and strong. The dialogue is, of course, what dominates here, and it’s perfectly clear, if not completely free of distortion (which is to be expected).
Video
Everything said above is even more true of the picture. The few colour sequences are extremely grainy. The black-and-white ones are less so, but still, well, of exactly the quality you would expect from a security camera. Anyone expecting anything more clearly needs to have his/her head examined.
Special Features
Two segments not used in the broadcast itself, and nothing more.
Closing Thoughts
An interesting idea, with some striking moments, but too much repetition that threatens monotony.
