Media

Home Theater Movie Renter's Guide - June, 2011

"The Dilemma" (Blu-ray) - Reviewed by Stephen Hornbrook

Synopsis

The Dilemma is about two long time friends, Ronny and Nick, who have built a business together designing electric “big block” engines.  When Ronny witnesses Nick’s wife cheating on him with another man, he is torn on whether or not to break the bad news to Nick.  Over the course of the movie, we learn Ronny is a recovering gambling addict and his odd behavior, attributed to the secret he is hiding from his best friend, has everyone suspecting he has returned to his gambling ways.

Commentary

Receiving a metascore of 46 over at Metacritic, this was not a well received film, especially for one directed by Ron Howard.  Given what I had heard about this movie, I had very low expectations and, as it turns out, it just barely exceeded those expectations. It wasn’t very funny, or heartfelt, or romantic, it was merely, with acting that could have been performed by your local theater group.  The movie wasn’t horrible, it just could have used a few more laughs.

Technical

Excellent image quality on this disc. This is one of the reasons I love Blu-ray so much - even when a movie is horrible, many times the image quality is so good, you can still enjoy the visuals. The audio was fairly good for a non-action adventure film.

Extras

Alternate Ending, Deleted Scenes, Gag reel