3 Days of the Condor – Blu-ray Disc Review
June 9, 2009 – 5:53 PM --- by: Brendan SurplessTags: Cliff Robertson, Faye Dunaway, Max Von Sydow, Paramount, Robert Redford, Sydney Pollack
has an average rating of 7.5 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
include just the trailer
– 
– 1975
– 117 Minutes
– Paramount
– 
This uses 37.1GB for the movie out of 38.3GB total.
Overall Verdict – For Fans Only
Buy it for $19.99 @ Amazon.com
— Review by: Brendan Surpless —
The Film is directed by Sidney Pollack. Joe Turner (Robert Redford) works at a clandestine office in New York as an undercover CIA Agent with the code name of Condor. Upon returning from an errand one rainy afternoon, Joe finds all of his coworkers have been murdered in cold blood. No evidence has been left nor a motive. The only aspect known to Joe is that he’s a suspect. Trying to figure this all out, Joe runs into a young woman named Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), someone he seduces into working with him. Now he must rift through a pile of people some who he thought are his friends wondering he can exactly trust. What results is a fairly good political thriller that certainly keeps the viewer attention throughout.
What works throughout “3 Days of the Condor” is the sense of tension and suspense the film builds. While not as nerve-racking or even as edge-of-your-seat as modern day thrillers, I still found myself very entertained by “Condor“. What helped was both Redford, someone who always seem to play that possible tough guy but ends up being someone who comes off as a normal everyday “joe” (pun intended), and Dunaway. Dunaway plays a solid love interest for Redford as their romance felt real and not predictable. Perhaps its more that these older films play out in a manner that the events are plausible. All too often too many thrillers today rely on big explosions and sudden twists instead of events that might occur. Maybe its more that audiences want their films to stray as far as possible from real-life. While I can appreciate these types of films, I feel that a mixture of modern day fast-paced action thrillers and films like “Condor” are necessary. Even though this is a somewhat slower movie, “Condor” succeeds if not only because of the plot.
Even though some may fault the film, which I’ll admit I initially did, for its rather slow pace, I still can’t help but applaud the film for tackling the issues it did. Clearly speaking of the Watergate scandal, this film labels the CIA, possibly, as an agency that doesn’t necessarily know what its doing. As Joe runs around attempting to fit the puzzle pieces together, every scene we see of varying CIA members basically shows them bumbling around never knowing what to do. It’s almost like no one man ever had a solid game plan in this corruption of Joe, but rather would think of what to do as the film moved along. I guess its those little pokes that keep films like this one in the minds of many.
Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layered Blu-ray Disc). Detail can tend to go from really good (some of the facial close ups to showcase a fine sense of detail) to rather poor (some of the wider shots showcase an almost washed out picture). The film’s color palette consists of somewhat grayed out colors. There isn’t really a color that tends to dominate. There is a sense of grain present but not too much meaning that the print has held up quite well over the years. The print does have a few signs of damage and blips but nothing that impacts the image. Some of the scenes do have a rather dull look and feel to them but that’s more probably a sense of how many 70s films looked. Contrast levels are spot on with no instance of levels being pumped up. All in all this is an impressive restoration from Paramount earning a “3.5 Star Rating“.
Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. The included TrueHD is nowhere near as impressive as the video transfer was. Dialogue is intelligible throughout although some may find that it has been recorded a bit lower resulting in a volume increase. Opting to go for this lossless track, Paramount has not included the original Mono track. What results here is many of the film’s effects, from gun shots to punches, sound rather fake almost like a zinging instead of a solid effect. I couldn’t but be reminded of similar effect noises from “The Terminator” release. Perhaps a future release will include the mono track. With that said, the film does focus on a heavy frontal mix with the surround literally never ever opening up. The decision to not include the original Mono track really angered me as the new TrueHD track gives the film too much of a overworked sound resulting in something that sounds almost futuristic. This gets a very disappointing “2 Star Rating“.
Bonus Materials include just the original Theatrical Trailer.
Blu-ray Disc packaging:
Screenshots:
NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.
