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Click above to purchase "Hanover Street" at amazon.com
Hanover Street
review by Ren C.
Rated PG
Studio: Columbia/Tristar
Running Time: 109 minutes
Starring Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher
Plummer
Written and Directed by Peter Hyams
Retail Price: $19.95
Features: Bonus Trailers, Director's Commentary
Specs: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, Dolby Digital 4.0
Discrete Surround, Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround, Dolby Digital
French 2.0, Dolby Digital Spanish 2.0, English Subtitles:,
French Subtitles:, Spanish Subtitles, Portuguese Subtitles,
Chinese Subtitles, Korean Subtitles, Thai Subtitles, English
Closed Captions
Released: July 31st, 2001
It seems like movies about World War II have been
explored from every conceivable angle. Unfortunately,
Hanover Street breaks no new ground. At its heart, the movie
wants to be both action-adventure and romance, but in doing
so, the movie takes on a very schizophrenic approach and at
times seems to almost splinter into two separate movies.
Both of the two plots, which remain separated for most of
the movie, revolve around David Halloran (Harrison Ford), a
pilot in the United States army. The movie begins with one
of the main reasons that I have a problem with it. The movie
literally throws itself into the middle of a situation, and
while most times this is a good thing, in this instance it
leaves the viewer disoriented for several minutes as they
try to figure out what is going on. The movie opens in
downtown London with Halloran trying to pick up a woman;
whose name we later find out is Margaret (Lesley-Anne Down).
The movie takes us through some of the annoyingly cute
banter that always seems to infest romance movies. At the
end of this extended discussion, Halloran has already fallen
in love and, in between bomb attacks, tells Margaret that he
will meet her at that same spot in two weeks. She resists
and says that she can't make it, but he will be there
regardless.
Then, the movie decides to switch to the action segment,
showing Halloran and his team taking part in bombing
missions. This seems like no more than a momentary
distraction, however, as we quickly cut ahead to two weeks
later and the same street corner in London where Halloran
and Margaret have reunited. In vignettes interspersed
between, we find out that Margaret is married with a child,
but this doesn't stop her from consummating her relationship
with Halloran fairly quickly.
Between this interlude and Halloran's next meeting with
Margaret, the movie presents us with other situations in
order to make us think that there are secondary characters
and some semblance of a plot. In essence though, this is a
two character movie, which would have been easier to
tolerate had the movie not forced other characters upon the
viewer. To condense the plot slightly, Halloran and
Margaret's relationship goes on until he is called away on a
secret mission in which he has to fly into enemy territory
one very special piece of cargo-Margaret's husband.
If this movie had been able to make a decision as to
whether it was an action movie or a romantic movie, it may
have better, but the way that director Peter Hyams put it
together, it stands out as very fragmented. While the movie
is never hard to follow, there seem to be so many
transitions that at times the viewer's head is left
spinning. While all of the participants in the movie make a
worthwhile effort, with Ford especially coming off well, the
characters just seem very two-dimensional throughout. In
all, this seems like a genuine attempt to make a good war
movie that just falls short.
For a '70s movie, this anamorphic transfer looks
extremely good. There is very little noticeable grain
throughout, and certainly none of it is present enough to be
distracting. Blacks are more often than not deep and rich,
and the movie is virtually free of artifacts. My only major
complaint is that some of the colors look slightly washed
out, especially in some of the bombing scenes. Overall,
though this is a very good transfer.
While the Dolby 4.0 track provided here is adequate, it
fell slightly short of what I expected it to be. Dialogue,
especially, seemed to fade in and out at times, making it
very hard to understand what characters were saying. This is
especially noticeable in the transition between two scenes,
one of which had characters chatting almost imperceptibly at
a table, and the next, which had a very present and audible
marching band. Ambient sounds seemed to be just that,
ambient, as sound effects on the whole were seemingly very
understated. Also provided is a Dolby 2.0 track, along with
French and Spanish audio tracks.
For a budget priced, non-blockbuster hit from the late
'70s, this has about the number of features that I would
expect. However, it commits the cardinal sin amongst
features with me, namely leaving out the film's original
theatrical trailer-or any sort of trailer for the film.
Three Trailers for other, fairly random movies are
included including, appropriately enough, Random Hearts, the
1999 version of The End of the Affair and The Remains of the
Day.
The other features provided here is an Audio
Commentary With Director Peter Hyams, who kicks off the
commentary by stating that he has not seen the movie since
1978. Sadly, this does not lead to any sort of particularly
interesting or insightful commentary from Hyams, who tends
to be not the most interesting speaker in the world. He
seems to be one of those individuals that has the soothing
voice, that combines with the uninteresting comments to lull
the listener into boredom.
I really wanted to like this movie. Harrison Ford is,
without question, one of the most well known and well-liked
actors of our generation, and he definitely holds his own in
this movie. However, the bad, clichéd plot just seems
to drag his performance downward. The video is good, but the
audio not particularly memorable, and the features are
completely forgettable. This movie is of interest only if
you are a Harrison Ford, or WWII movie completist.
 (2/5 - NOT included in
final score)
 (3.5/5)
 (3/5)
 (1/5)
(3.5/5, NOT an average)
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