Review: Thelma and Louise
Originally Published in DVD ETC. Magazine 2003
Thelma & Louise Special Edition
MGM Home Entertainment
2 hours 9 minutes
2.35:1 widescreen
Dolby Digital Stereo
Rating: A
Audio quality: B+
Video quality: A
Thelma (Geena Davis) is a mousy, discontent housewife. Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a tough-as-nails waitress. These
two women and their friendship took the nation by storm - and stirred up a whirlwind of controversy while they
were at it.
This Special Edition DVD release of Thelma & Louise is worthy of its heroines; video is crisp and clear, allowing
director Ridley Scott's sweeping, Ford-esque vistas to shine (and showing every smudge of dirt on Thelma and Louise's
faces). The audio cut out, oddly, but only once (when Thelma and JD are getting it on in the motel room); otherwise
each drop of rain, each squeal of tires, each gunshot, each word was clear as crystal.
The DVD release includes over thirty minutes of deleted scenes (done in a really intelligent fashion: the viewer
can choose to have not only commentary but also a "deleted scenes" marker that indicates what part of
a particular scene was not in the original movie), an ending that is less "alternate" than it is "extended,"
commentary by Scott and Sarandon/Davis, over a hundred stills of cast and crew and a documentary that talks not
only about the details of creation, casting and production, but also gets into the reaction by the public and how
it initially caught all those involved in the film off-guard.
I could get into the controversy, but this would turn into a film studies paper instead of a DVD review. Watch
it for yourself, and make up your own mind.
