A Bronx Tale appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. This Dolby Vision presentation generally looked good.
Despite a light layer of grain, I couldn’t help but suspect that the image came with some noise reduction. A few too many shots featured faces that felt a bit “plastic”.
Nonetheless, the film generated largely positive delineation. A little softness crept in along with the moderate smoothing impression, but most of the flick seemed fairly accurate.
No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws also didn’t interfere.
Colors tended toward a subdued palette with a modest lean toward blues and greens. The hues appeared appropriate for the project, and HDR gave the tones a boost.
Blacks seemed deep and tight, while shadows came across as smooth. Whites and contrast enjoyed a moderate shot in the arm as well. Despite a few concerns, I thought this became a more than watchable image.
Don’t expect much from the film’s subdued DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack as it lacked ambition. This meant a pretty heavy emphasis on the front channels.
Music showed nice stereo presence, and these elements also spread to the rear channels in a minor manner. Effects didn’t spread out in an especially involving way, however.
Honestly, a lot of the track felt almost monaural in that realm. Some vehicles moved across the forward domain in a passable manner but they failed to give us much.
As for the rear speakers, they remained awfully passive. Again, little music popped up back there, but effects didn’t – at least not to a noticeable degree – so this became an awfully restrained soundscape for 1993.
At least audio quality seemed fine, as speech remained natural and concise. Effects occasionally betrayed a little distortion and they didn’t show great dimensionality, but they came across as reasonably accurate.
Music mixed score and period songs, so obviously the latter depended on the nature of the source. Music came across with decent fidelity, though I didn’t sense great range. This felt like a surprisingly low-key and restricted mix for a movie from 1993.
Under Revisiting A Bronx Tale, we find two new interviews. We hear from actor/director Robert De Niro (14:31) and actor/writer Chazz Palminteri (45:50).
During his chat, De Niro discusses how he came to the property and how he convinced Palminteri to give him the rights, casting, sets and locations, music, influences, attempts at authenticity, balancing acting and directing.
As for Palminteri, he tells us about the movie's autobiographical elements, how he ended up as a writer/performer and his original one-man show, its adaptation for the screen, other aspects of his life, casting, and the project's continued legacy.
I don't tend to expect much from De Niro interviews, as he usually can offer a dull subject. However, he manages to fill his relatively short piece with useful information.
Unsurprisingly, Palminteri's reel works better, as he gives us a fine array of insights, especially related to connections to his life. Both interviews work and add to our understanding of the film.
In addition to the film’s trailer, we find a circa 1993 Making Of Featurette. It spans six minutes, 43 seconds and offers info from De Niro, Palminteri, producer Jane Rosenthal and actors Lillo Brancato and Francis Capra.
They cover some basics of the project and not much more in this promo piece. I do like the short glimpse of Brancato’s audition tape in which he impersonates De Niro, though.
In 1993, Robert De Niro went behind the camera for the first of his two directorial efforts via A Bronx Tale. Though superior to the sluggish and dull Good Shepherd from 2006, Tale nonetheless fails to sufficiently explore the drama at its core. The 4K UHD comes with reasonably good though unexceptional picture and audio as well as a mix of interviews. While it shows potential, Tale just doesn’t quite click.