One of Bette Midler's best films and best performances was in "Ruthless People".  Well, she's back and funnier than ever in "DROWNING MONA", being released in a wonderfully packaged presentation from COLUMBIA TRISTAR.

    Midler plays an obnoxious murder victim, Mona Dearly, whom has been found drowned after her car runs off the road into a river.  Detective Danny De Vito(also from "Ruthless People" sets out to find the killer after finding her brakes were tampered with.  Unfortunately, the list of potential suspects with the motive of "hating Mona" includes literally, the entire town!!!  The film plays like a black-comedy, with an assortment of hilarious characters reflecting on Mona's many despicable traits.  And, Midler isn't actually in the film that much.  But, she's incredible for the time allotted to her, and the rest of the cast is perfect too!

    Like "Ruthless People", the comedy rarely lets up!  One hilarious gag follows another, and while the film is brief,(only 96 minutes) it feels just right!  This is also a film worthy of repeated viewings, and undoubtedly viewers will want to turn on new fans to this film that did dismally at the box office.

    COLUMBIA TRISTAR offers Director Nick Gomez on a running commentary.  The commentary, while not the best,( there are occasional lulls)does offer some interesting anecdotes about the actual filming, and as usual with most COLUMBIA TRISTAR releases, there's some great insight for aspiring directors into what every director is up against with budget/time constraints.  There is also a deleted scenes segment with optional commentary from Gomez.  While all of the scenes deserved to be cut, it's still great to have that extra fun feature of being able to see what does and doesn't work.

The actual transfer is wonderful.  As is a growing standard with COLUMBIA TriStar, the letterboxed side is presented with 16:9 enhancement.  While even in regular letterboxing the picture looks great, with anamorphic, the perfect display of rich colors and incredible contrast, is rendered even more beautifully.  There are no artifacts anywhere here!  The full frame presentation(again a Columbia standard) actually looks fine too!  Unlike many non-letterboxed presentations, this appears to be a real "full frame", meaning more information on top and bottom, and none lost on the sides.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound offers an extremely active mix, somewhat surprising for a film with so much fast dialogue, but the effects are mostly atmospheric.  The dialogue is perfectly rendered without distractions and the musical score is wonderful.