Video Dispatches: DECODER, MR. NICE GUY, RED HEAT & 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED

Video Dispatches is a regular column covering recent home video releases.

Decoder (1984) – Vinegar Syndrome

Muscha’s Decoder, a cyberpunk West Germany neo-noir about noise tapes inciting a revolution when played at a fast food joint, is, as you might imagine, a lot to take in. Thankfully, its neon avant-garde abstractions are a joy to let wash over you. Decoder is also a perfect example of the breadth of Vinegar Syndrome’s catalogue.

While its politicized paranoia and surveillance are hard to miss, I wouldn’t pretend to be able to parse Decoder with any finesse on one viewing. Also thankfully, VinSyn have included a commentary by Kier-La Janisse, who offers a non-stop treasure trove of information to contextualize and better understand the aesthetic, thematic and political form of the film. Funny enough, on another supplement with writer/producer Klaus Maeck, he says he wanted to do a commentary for the disc but ended up running out of things to say — although the two features with him add up to nearly the film’s runtime. Janisse certainly doesn’t have that issue.

Of particular interest on the disc are scenes from a short documentary by Derek Jarman, who visited the set and filmed William S. Burroughs, who provided both the film’s influence and a small part in the film. Unfortunately, only excerpts are included, which display an appropriately avant-garde film itself. Overall, I highly recommend this disc — it’s the type of release that gets me excited for what the company has in store in the coming months.

Mr. Nice Guy (1997) – Warner Archive

After almost a decade apart, Jackie Chan and director Sammo Hung reunited in 1997 for Mr. Nice Guy, which finds Chan, a celebrity chef, in the wrong place at the wrong time. After saving a random woman on the run, Chan becomes a target for a group of organized drug dealers who are convinced Chan has an incriminating videotape. Essentially, the film is one long chase scene, of course with intermittent violence — some of which is better than others, but it’s never too slack.

Mr. Nice Guy isn’t considered any Chan or Hung’s favorite outing, but the film is far from taxing. In Roger Ebert’s review, he compares Chan to Buster Keaton, “That may seem like a stretch, but look at his films and it’s obvious Chan is more in the tradition of silent comedy than of the chop-socky genre. He kids himself, he pretends to be in over his head, and he survives by luck and skill instead of brute force.” Not too much of a stretch, and his point about avoiding brute force can perhaps explain why the film’s ending was a sticking point for many critics. The film ends with Chan destroying sports cars and a mansion with a monster truck. It’s a scene that both diminishes any momentum and also dives head-first into brute force rather than luck and skill.

The new disc from Warner Archive presents the film with a lovely new 4K transfer of the extended “Golden Harvest” cut, while also making the theatrical available for completists.

Red Heat (1988) – Lionsgate

While watching the supermarket chase scene in Mr. Nice Guy, I couldn’t help but think of 1985’s Commando and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fantastic mall maneuvering. And like Chan with Mr. Nice Guy, Arnie, in one of his lesser films, Red Heat, has now been given the 4K treatment.

Directed by Walter Hill, Red Heat is a strange buddy cop I can’t help but be nostalgic for. Schwarzenegger, a Russian detective, is sent to Chicago where he’s saddled next to a stereotypically Chicagoan loud-mouthed, grumpy cop to crack a case. Belushi is as expected, but Schwarzenegger, great here, is stoic and reserved in a role that mostly eschews his muscle power save for a great opening fight in a co-ed Russian sauna. The film’s sympathies and tone seem to relate more to Schwarzenegger than Belushi, which is a nice change from the buddy movie status quo of gawking at the strange foreigner.

Though it’s unlikely many were crying for a 4K transfer of Red Heat, I’m glad it’s here. The film is shot handsomely by Matthew F. Leonetti, who really gets the neon grime of urban Chicago. Also, the disc is surprisingly stacked with a half-dozen featurettes covering the making of the film and content surrounding Arnie’s persona. The nine-minute supplement on the film’s political context is particularly interesting.

47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019) – Lionsgate

The obvious critical tag on 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is that it’s less of a sequel to the 2017 survival-at-sea horror film starring Mandy Moore and more a stealth sequel to The Descent, as it follows a quarter of young women who get stuck in an underground Mayan cave and have to battle blind killer sharks, a limited amount of air supply and the cave’s labyrinthine structure to make it out alive.

The film’s predecessor was a decent thrill, although frustratingly was too meak to be as mean as it should’ve been. Here, Johannes Roberts, returning as director, seems freer to be rude, presumably due to the film’s VOD-adjacent cast. As a result, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is an improvement on the former, though it too fumbles its denouement a bit — but at 80 minutes from opening credits to close, American thrillers are rarely this fun without overstaying their welcome.

As I’ve mentioned in this column on numerous occasions this year, Lionsgate, as far as standard new releases go, are outworking their peers. Sometimes that’s as simple as what they’ve done on this disc, same as they did on the The Last Black Man in San Francisco and The Farewell discs recently, which is just adding a commentary track with filmmaker and members of the crew. At a time in home video where commentaries are being completely phased out as a practice by entire companies, it’s a nice touch. Here, it’s enough to easily look past the conventional 12-minute featurette here culled from junkets.