George Clooney Double Feature: The American / Leatherheads Blu-ray review

Jun 15, 2022- Permalink

Mill Creek Entertainment has released the George Clooney Double Feature: The American / Leatherheads Blu-ray combining two of George’s films at a reasonable price point. Let’s take a look…

In 2010’s The American, Clooney plays an assassin and gunsmith who hides out in Castel del Monte, an Italian commune, after a near-death experience has him questioning everyone’s intentions, even that of his handler, Pavel (Johan Leysen). He keeps company with two locals: Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli), a priest, and Clara (Violante Placido), a prostitute. When he accepts one last job from Pavel – making a custom sniper rifle for a fellow killer named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten) – he finds himself questioning everything and everyone. It’s not a fast-paced action flick, but rather a tense, methodical examination of a hitman facing the perils of his chosen profession.

On a lighter note, 2008’s Leatherheads is a sports-themed romantic comedy set in the 1920s. Clooney plays Jimmy “Dodge” Connelly, the captain of the Duluth Bulldogs, a struggling pro football team. Looking to turn around the financial fortunes of the team, he convinces Carter “The Bullet” Rutherford (John Krasinski) to join the team. Rutherford is not only Princeton University’s star player, he’s also a decorated WWI hero. His appearance on the team draws the interest of a Chicago Tribune newspaper reporter, Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellwegger), who’s investigating claims that Rutherford’s heroics may not be all they’re cracked up to be. A love triangle and the machinations of pro sports carry the film to the end zone.

Both movies appear on one Blu-ray disc. The 1080p AVC encoded transfers are presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio for The American and a 1.85:1 aspect ratio for Leatherheads. Both films had previous Universal Blu-rays using the older VC-1 encoding. The newer AVC MPEG-4 encoding does this release some favours. Both films do well for clarity and detail in the usual suspects (facial features, hair, textiles, and environments) and the colour palettes for the most part are quite pleasing and realistic. Black levels are pretty deep. The only issue here is the compression Mill Creek uses to get the two films on one disc, which lends to some abundant macroblocking in some lower light scenes.

On the audio side both films come with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack and English SDH subtitles. Any slight concerns for the video quality do not translate to the audio. These are very nice tracks, with good use of the surrounds, bright dynamic music and clear, centred and well prioritized dialogue.

The disc does not come with a digital code for the movies, nor does it come with any supplemental materials.

The George Clooney Double Feature: The American / Leatherheads Blu-ray is an economical way to add two Clooney films to your library if you’re more of a casual physical media consumer. With good video and excellent sound, I’d recommend it at this price point.