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Blu-ray Review: SAVING SILVERMAN

Aug 02, 2021 Posted by in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

Wayne LeFessier (Steve Zahn), J.D. McNugent (Jack Black) and Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) have been best friends since the 5th grade. In high school, they all joined the football team—well, Wayne was the 3rd string quarterback, J.D. was the mascot, and Darren was a cheerleader. Darren always had a crush on classmate Sandy (Amanda Detmer)—she was the only girl Darren ever loved—but things never worked out as she left and moved away when her family literally joined the circus. The guys are now all grown up (though not really grownups in the true sense of the word). They still live like college students, and use their spare time to perform as a Neil Diamond tribute band called Diamonds in the Rough. Wayne runs his own critter wrangling business, while J.D. has worked his way up to temporary assistant manager at Subway, and Darren is the social director at a retirement home. None of the guys have been lucky in love, mostly spending all of their time with one another. However, that changes when Darren meets sexy phycologist Judith (Amanda Peet) at a bar and their relationship progresses rapidly.

Judith enjoys having a boyfriend who’s meek and easy to manipulate and control, while Darren just appreciates having a woman who shows him some attention. However, Judith doesn’t like Darren’s disgusting, dimwitted friends, and orders him to quit the band and no longer see them. This doesn’t sit well with Wayne and J.D., who fear that Judith has too much control over their best friend. And once they learn that Judith has convinced Darren to marry her, the guys start to panic. They need to stop Darren from making the biggest mistake of his life, and save him from Judith. So they decide to kidnap Darren’s fiancée and fake Judith’s death so that Darren will move on. They have also found the perfect woman to make that happen—Darren’s first and only love, Sandy. The only problem is that she’s just days away from taking her vows as a nun. Also, the mentally-challenged Wayne and J.D. are no match for the manipulative mind tricks that Judith is about to deploy on them. Can the guys manage to save their friend and (literally) get the band back together?!

Saving Silverman has a great cast and some fun, laugh-out-loud moments, but it gets quite cartoony and over-the-top at times, and some of the jokes feel so dated, uninspired and repetitive. Wayne and J.D. are certainly not the sharpest tools in the shed, and often come off as bumbling buffoons. Like Wile E. Coyote, they come up with these overly-complicated schemes that usually end up with them getting bonked over the head. It’s a wonder how they’ve even survived life up until this point, especially J.D. who is a complete mess and can’t even hold down a job at Subway. Meanwhile, Judith is like the Roadrunner, seeing through all these plans and manipulating the situation to her advantage, often getting the better of her captors. At the same time, Darren is clueless as to what’s going on. He is either willfully ignoring or totally blind to the fact that his relationship-without-benefits with Judith is completely one-sided and that he’s being used. However, when Sandy comes back in the picture, there’s this spark that reignites in him.

There is great chemistry between the actors—there really is this sense of true lifelong friendship between Wayne, J.D. and Darren, and that they guys do have Darren’s best interest in mind, despite their misguided efforts. The actors are a bit typecast in their typical roles (though ones they are good at)—Steve Zahn is the quirky, slightly-dim oddball, Jack Black is the loud, messy and obnoxious one with a heart, and Jason Biggs is the inexperienced, naïve guy who gets nervous and awkward around women. Amanda Peet makes you love to hate her character. How she treats Daren is despicable, but the way Judith is able to manipulate any situation to her advantage is quite impressive. Amanda Detmer is a pure delight as the nun-to-be who is now struggling with whether or not she should take her vows, and she has some really funny and charming moments. It was Coach (R. Lee Ermey) who taught the boys all of life’s important lessons (or at least in his own twisted way) in high school, and now he returns to help Wayne and J.D. deal with their kidnapping mess. I always thought of R. Lee Ermey as this tough military like guy, but he proves that he can also be hilarious. The film also has a wonderful guest appearance.

Saving Silverman had previously been released on DVD in both PG-13 and R-rated versions. While there’s a PG-13 logo before the film starts, this release most certainly contains the R-rated cut of the film. There is a lot of gratuitous nudity and unnecessary expletives that serve no purpose to the story, except to boost the rating. I would have actually have preferred the PG-13 cut, or have the disk offer both, like Mill Creek’s Blu-ray of Your Highness. Some of these low-brow moments felt exploitative and just took me out of the moment.

Mill Creek’s video presentation features a clean, pleasant picture, but it looks a bit flat. It lacks a strong level of detail that is especially noticeable in faces, which don’t appear to have a lot of definition. While the previous DVD releases included a 5.1 audio track, this Blu-ray only offers a 2.0 track. The dialogue is clear and the musical performances by the Diamonds in the Rough sound great. While I never really found the track lacking, the audio is missing that fullness and ambiance of a surround track. As for bonus material, the previous DVD releases contained a director’s commentary track, an outtakes reel, and the film’s trailer, but unfortunately none of these have been ported over to this barebones release. The main menu only offers the option of enabling the subtitles. The Blu-ray disc comes packed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase, without a slipcover or digital copy.



What’s Included:

Film: (1:36:21)

  • 1080p / Widescreen 1.85:1
  • Audio: English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
  • Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

    This release contains no bonus material.



Final Thoughts:

My Rating
Film:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Worth a Look

Saving Silverman arrives on Blu-ray for the first time in its R-rated cut. The film has a great cast, and while some of the jokes can a bit tired, this is far from the worst low-brow comedy, and it does deliver some really fun moments. The release features decent picture and sound, though all of the bonus material from the previous DVD releases as been excised. Worth a look for fans of the film or of the cast.