Frantic [DVD] [1988]

Living in exile in Paris after eluding a controversial charge of statutory rape in America, director Roman Polanski seemed professionally adrift during the 1980s, making only one film (the ill-fated Pirates) between 1979 and 1988. Then Polanski found inspiration--and a major star in Harrison Ford--to make Frantic, a thriller that played directly into Polanski's gift for creating an atmosphere of mystery, dread, escalating suspense and uncertain fate. Set in Paris (Polanski couldn't go to Hollywood, so Hollywood came to him), the story begins when an American heart surgeon (Ford) arrives in the City of Lights with his wife (Betty Buckly) for a medical convention. They check into a posh hotel, and in a brilliantly directed scene, Ford takes a shower and emerges to find that his wife has vanished. This mysterious disappearance--and a confusion between two identical pieces of luggage--leads Ford into the Paris underground and a plot that grows increasingly dangerous as he approaches the truth of his wife's disappearance. The plot of Frantic gets too complicated, and the pace drops off in the cluttered second half, but in Polanski's capable hands the film is blessed with moments of heightened suspense in the tradition of classic thrillers. --Jeff Shannon

Please note that this DVD contains a French language soundtrack that is a blended mixture of English and French and not entirely in French. The DVD has French subtitles that provide a translation for the dialogue parts of the French soundtrack that are spoken in English.

1.85 Wide Screen
French\Italian
English\Italian
English
Region 2
Dolby Surround English French Italian
Dolby Surround
Interactive Menu
Scene Access
Arabic\Bulgarian\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Portuguese\Romanian\Spanish