The Movie: This is a movie that I've also heard about for a long time but had never seen before. It won Oscars in 1972 for best picture, best actor (Gene Hackman), best director, best film editing, and best adapted screenplay. This is a great detective movie based on a novel which was based on a true story. It's got a really great car chase scene (which was shot in real traffic, even the car crash was real and unplanned!), and a masterfully made and suspenseful "lose the tail" sequence. Many people consider this to be the best detective movie ever made.

But. In my opinion, it took a really long time to get going. The last third of the movie was incredible. I was glued to my seat... I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next, but the first two-thirds of it were kind of slow and I was wondering if anything was going to happen at all. But that last third of the movie was really worth it all.

The DVD: This is part of Fox's Five Star Collection, however, because I rented this movie from Netflix, I only have disc 1 of the two disc set. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is very clean (but 1970's grainy), with no (or very few) instances of dust and scratches and whatnot. The color looked great too. Visually, I think this film was nicely restored. The 5.1 soundtrack was mostly frontal on the soundstage, but was very clear and crisp. I was quite surprised that a movie of this era could look and sound so great.

The menu's were pretty cool, without being over-the-top. Nothing sucks more than having to wait forever for an animated menu to stop before you can do anything. As far as special features go, this disc had a couple of commentary tracks, and a theatrical trailer. All the rest of the stuff is on the second disc, which as I mentioned before, I didn't see, but if the quality of the first disc is any indication, I'm sure the second disc is chock full of interesting stuff.

This is a pretty cool movie to watch and it's full of 70's goodness, and some really great chases and action sequences. The DVD looks and sounds great, so if you are a fan of this movie you won't be disappointed. All in all, a DVD worth checking out.