Love Ranch - DVD

Film: After winning an Oscar for the musician biopic Ray, director Taylor Hackford has once again turned to a true story with Love Ranch, which should serve as the template for a gripping drama. But despite a great cast and an interesting story, the math only partially worked out this time.

Grace Bentempo (Helen Mirren) runs Love Ranch, the first legal brothel in Nevada, with her husband Charlie (Joe Pesci). To survive in this business, Grace can't afford to have big emotions. She has to be tough and sometimes chase away pushy customers with her walker. Only towards her husband she can not maintain this hardness. Time and again she has to watch him cheat on her or throw her money out the window. When Charlie uses Grace's savings to get into the boxing business and manage Argentine boxer Armando Bruza (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), it's the last straw for Grace. Then events come crashing down: Grace learns she doesn't have long to live and falls in love with the much younger Armando, who is smitten with the strong brothel boss from the moment he meets her. But if Charlie were to find out, it could have fatal consequences for Grace and her fighter.

Love Ranch could be a great movie. The cast, led by a great Helen Mirren, are all convincing and very well cast, even in small supporting roles. The story, based on the true events surrounding Joe and Sally Conforte's Mustang Ranch and the death of boxer Oscar Bonavena, offers plenty of suspense and entertainment potential. But Hackford only succeeds in a few moments in fully realizing that potential. Too often the action seems strangely undercooled and rushed, the characters remain surprisingly pale despite excellent performances by the actors. Whether this is due to the fact that the film has been significantly cut (the US DVD contains almost an hour of cut scenes, which add a lot more depth to the characters) remains to be seen. The fact is that the film can only live up to the high ambitions of its makers to a very limited extent.

What is absolutely successful, on the other hand, is the great camerawork, the sets and the music. Since all these aspects, coupled with the good actors, are right, Love Ranch then bottom line has not become the very big disappointment, which could have occurred due to the aforementioned weak points. A solid drama, which is acting on quite a high level, but weakens a little in terms of content.

Picture + Sound: The image, bathed in warm tones, is largely clean, the overall sharpness is convincing and the contrasts are also quite coherent. Here and there some details seem a little washed out and the brightness a little too strong, but the overall visual impression is on a good level. The audio is dominated by the dialogue and music, with a smattering of surround effects and decent but atmospheric ambient noise bringing a little life to the tonal proceedings. Good!

Extras: Except for the trailer for the film in German and English, as well as other trailers from the offer of the provider, the DVD unfortunately has no bonus material to offer. This is all the more disappointing, as the American disc has almost an hour of cut scenes to offer, in addition to an audio commentary by the director.

Conclusion: Love Ranch is a superbly acted and largely entertaining drama, but it lacks the final kick to really do justice to the great talent of its cast and director. The DVD is technically well realized, but disappoints with the lack of thoroughly available bonus material

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp