After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema – Collection Four (1990-1997) (Blu-ray Review)
Director
David Lynch/Jonathan Kaplan/Roger Donaldson/Lee Tamahori/Matthew Bright/John IrvinRelease Date(s)
1990/1992/1994/1996/1997 (April 29, 2026)Studio(s)
The Samuel Goldwyn Company/20th Century Fox/Universal Pictures/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Republic Pictures/Orion Pictures (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: See Below
- Video Grade: See Below
- Audio Grade: See Below
- Extras Grade: A-
- Overall Grade: A-
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray release.]
Imprint’s After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema sets are pretty much must own Blu-ray collections for fans of 90s and early 2000s cinema. The neo-noir movement contains a good chunk of my favorite films from the latter-day period of neo-noir and Imprint is lovingly delivering on these in souped-up editions. This fourth volume contains six films released between the years of 1990 to 1997 and is kicked off by the cosmic collaboration between David Lynch and one of the main voices responsible for the 90s noir resurgence—Black Lizard editor Barry Gifford.
WILD AT HEART
1990’s Palme d’Or-winning Wild at Heart is a true cinematic sight to behold. I consider it a perfect film, but that mileage may vary with some. If you’re a fan of neo-noir, Lynch or quirky road movies, I feel like you just have to love this film too. Up until 1990, author Barry Gifford was primarily known as a poet, film critic, editor and Jack Kerouac biographer. His novel of the same name seemed written specifically for Lynch to film. And Lynch agreed—after reading it in galley form, he immediately stepped in to adapt and direct it himself when asked to simply serve as an EP by friend Monty Montgomery. Recently paroled ex-con Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage, channeling the best parts of Elvis) and Lula Fortune (Laura Dern at her sexiest) are star-crossed lovers on the run from Lula’s unhinged mother Marietta (Dern’s real mother, Diane Ladd) who has ties to a gang of criminals with Illuminati like power at their disposal and will use them to keep Sailor’s hands off her beautiful baby girl. Trying to make their way to California from North Carolina, Sailor and Lula float through a dark world encountering a seemingly never-ending cast of Lynchian characters while Marietta’s current boyfriend, nice-guy private detective Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton) tracks them down as he himself is tracked by Marietta’s jealous ex-beau Marcellus Santos (J.E. Freeman). All of it comes to a head in Big Tuna, Texas when Sailor and Luna bump up against Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe at his most Willem Dafoe), a manic pixie of a criminal with an offer Sailor can’t say no to, with heavy strings attached leading back to Marietta. The film is chock-a-block with great characters acted out by gifted character actors, many of whom appear in other Lynch productions making for a film that just gets better the more times you watch it.
Told in a disjointed, dream-like style, with more than a nod to The Wizard of Oz, Wild at Heart looks really wonderful on Blu-ray in 1080p at 2.35:1. I’m not sure if this a new transfer or if it’s the same as the Twilight Time release from 2014—reviewed by Adam Jahnke here. It could be a new transfer, because it looks much better here than what Adam and others at the time describe, but it might not be as there are a few imperfections visible (although I watched this film several times theatrically and it’s always been a grainy film). As it is, I think it’s a very pleasing image and that just excites me even more to see what Criterion’s confirmed to be a brand new 4K edition will look like when that comes out November 2026. The sound is also really nice, and if you love Lynch, you know his soundscapes are part of the art. Presented here in optional English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround or LPCM 2.0 Stereo (with English SDH subs) both sound great and really expand the experience outward.
The selling point for this set, in case you worry about the dreaded double dip come November—is that there are a great deal of new and seemingly exclusive supplemental features (including a grand collection of archival material collected from past releases). Found on this disc is an isolated music and sound effects track, and a brand-new audio commentary moderated by filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat (I Blame Society) with producer Monty Montgomery trying hard to remember all of the deep dives that Gillian takes him down. She’s a true fan and you can tell working with Lynch became second nature to Montgomery and he lost sight of the magic he saw everyday that she is interested in; but he really enjoys her effort to lead him back down memory lane. There’s also Escape to Peru, a new interview with Willem Dafoe where he discusses how he met Lynch, working with him and some of the regret they never got to work together again. No Going Back: The Chaos of Cutting Wild at Heart is a truly wonderful new interview with filmmaker Duwayne Dunham where he discusses his long period working with Lynch as editor on Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart and both iterations of Twin Peaks. Runaways, Rebels and Ramblers: Casting Wild at Heart is another new and wonderful interview with Lynch’s favorite casting director Johanna Ray who has some great stories about working with Lynch. The rest are archival pulls from the original DVD and reused on the Twilight Time release. They are: Love, Death, Elvis & Oz: The Making of Wild at Heart—a documentary about the film featuring new, for 2004 at least, interviews with cast and crew. Dell’s Lunch Counter is/are extended interview segments not used in that documentary. Specific Spontaneity: Focus on Lynch is a featurette, again, made up of clips from the documentary sessions with folks “washing Lynch’s car”. David Lynch on the DVD is a quicky with Lynch where he basically discusses color timing and thanks MGM for letting him create a new transfer for the DVD, which is nice to see but not applicable here. There’s also the original EPK, here called an archival making-of featurette, Sailor and Lula Image Gallery, theatrical trailer and loop of TV spots. From the 2018 Shout Select Blu-ray edition is the uncensored Bobby Peru Scene where the smoke effects are removed from THE “shot” and a nice long interview with Barry Gifford entitled Strange and Wild Voyage of Sailor and Lula. Many of these extras will not be on the Criterion edition, but I’m hopeful that the still exclusive to Lynch’s Lime Green Box deleted and extended scenes will show up on the Criterion set in their entirety.
WILD AT HEART (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): A/B+/A/A
UNLAWFUL ENTRY
In 1992 we were given the epitome of home invasion films mixed with relatively new societal unease towards those who we thought were there to serve and protect us: Jonathan Kaplan’s Chinese buffet of a neo-noir, Unlawful Entry. Kurt Russell stars as upwardly mobile yuppie Michael, in the early stages of the good life with his beautiful wife Karen, played by the always stunning Madeleine Stowe. One night their world is shattered when they become the victims of a violent home invasion, calling the police after. Ray Liotta’s Pete and his partner are the first on the scene and Pete is immediately taken by Karen and he will do anything to make her his. And I mean anything. Part psychological thriller, traditional melodrama, social commentary about toxic masculinity and political horror tale focusing on the “us versus them” trope, Kaplan’s thriller is more than any sum of its parts. Ray Liotta’s performance as the unhinged cop Pete is the film’s shining light, but Russell brings a wonderfully understated performance as a once timid everyman who grows into a defender of his world. Stowe has a lot to bring to this film as well, with her not just playing the object of two men’s desire; her agency is very much on display here. Unlawful Entry is deserving of a modern day rewatch and if you haven’t seen it, there is no better way to bring it into your library than with this edition.
This Imprint release has both a 4K UHD disc (the only film in the set that has a 4K) and a standard Blu-ray disc (both are all-Region). The 4K transfer is very well done, restored from the original 35mm negative with great clarity while keeping the appearance of a film shot in the early 90s (at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio). It’s a traditional neo-noir with great shadow play and the blacks are nice and solid. I don’t really have anything bad to say. The Blu-ray, presented in 1080p is also quite good, but not as crisp as the 4K. It could be a side effect of this also being the disc with all of the extras. There are two audio tracks on this release, both editions contain the same English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0 tracks and sound exact. Sound is clear and stable with some nice atmospheric play. English SDH subs are also included.
The supplementals include a very enjoyable audio commentary by Jonathan Kaplan on both discs that was on the original DVD. There’s also quite a few extras pulled over from the Shout Select Blu-ray: Unrestrained Realism, an interview with Kaplan about his career and the making of this film, Too Tightly Wound: Inside the Filming of Unlawful Entry, an interview with the director of photography Jamie Anderson about his relationship with Kaplan with great insight about the shooting of this film. There’s also Symphonic Intruder: Inside the Thriller Scores of James Horner which is an overview of Horner’s musical career by film music historian Daniel Schweiger. Rounding things out are archival featurettes: a making of in two parts, archival interviews with actors Ray Liotta and Madeleine Stowe and Kaplan, a compilation of archival interviews with cast and crew, B-roll, TV spots and a restored theatrical trailer which is nice to see, especially from Imprint.
UNLAWFUL ENTRY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B+/A+/A/A
THE GETAWAY
1994 brings us Roger Donaldson’s remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway from 1972. A top-notch cast doesn’t really elevate the material higher than the original, which is a classic neo-noir in its own right. Alec Baldwin, Kim Basinger, Michael Madsen, Jennifer Tilly, David Morse, Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Woods all shine. Filmmaker Walter Hill wrote the 1972 version, but disliked the rewrite overseen by Peckinpah and was excited for the opportunity to have his original draft finally filmed with him as director but thanks to concerns about the budget, Hill walked and was replaced by Donaldson and the script was redrafted to make Basinger happy by bringing in Amy Jones to give her character Carol more agency in the film. Aside from the beefier role for Carol, most of the film plays within the same sandbox and ends up being too much of a retread of the original to truly be special, but it’s still a fun film. Fans of the original Jim Thompson novel will probably never see the surreal “El Rey Ending” ever brought to life; and maybe that’s for the best—it’s a bit of a swerve. The Getaway follows Doc and Carol McCoy (Baldwin and Basinger) who pull off a daring racetrack robbery for a crime boss. Lots of double dealing lead to the McCoys on the run to Mexico and the criminal paradise known as El Rey with a spurred two-timing partner (Madsen) and the crime boss’ gang after them. Of note is the glorious character work by Madsen and his willing kidnap victim Tilly as they close in on the McCoys and a wonderful adaptation of the train station con (if you know you know).
Presented in 1080p high definition is a clean but older transfer of the film. It’s not a stunning, reference quality image, but it’s serviceable. It’s not overly processed, with grain and some flat backgrounds but if you’re not being a picky reviewer, you may not find issue. Audio fares much better, you get two options—English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround and LPCM 2.0 Stereo and both sound great and serve the action in the film quite well. Optional English SDH subtitles are onboard as well. Extras are ported over from the Shout Select edition including an audio commentary by film critic Travis Woods doing that film critic on a commentary thing, Ambushed: Scoring The Getaway, an interview with composer Mark Isham about his process which ends up being a pretty deep dive, Double Crossed: Inside The Getaway an interview with writer C. Courtney Joyner offering a few mixed up facts, an EPK making-of, raw behind-the-scenes footage, two separate archival interviews with Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger and a blah theatrical trailer.
THE GETAWAY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B/B+/A/B+
MULHOLLAND FALLS
To call Mulholland Falls neo-noir is a cheat considering its whole reason for being is to pay homage to the original noirs of the 1940s. Yes, it was released in 1996, but the DNA of this film goes back 50 years from that release. Set in the 1950s, Lee Tamahori’s film spins a tale about a team of gruff cops based on the real-life LAPD Gangster Squad, also known as the Hat Squad—a team of four unflappable law men whose soul mission was to keep gangsters out of LA by any means and tactic known. They were quite successful and yet failed at the same time (like bailing out a sinking rowboat, you can only succeed for so long before you’re underwater) and have become the basis for many film and TV stories over the years. Nick Nolte is the leader, Lt. Max Hoover, his tight-knit team is Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen and Chris Penn. When Allison, a prostitute played by Jennifer Connelly, is found dead Black Dahlia-style pressed into the mud at a construction site, Nolte and crew investigate. Hoover acts like he has a connection to the prostitute and much to his wife’s (a somewhat underused Melanie Griffith) dismay, he certainly does. Allison’s connection to an Oppenheimer-like scientist (John Malkovich) and a secret government cover-up makes things harder and harder for Hoover to properly investigate and bring Allison justice. Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential released the following year would do the Gangster Squad more justice, but it’s still fun to see all these great character actors come together and play act cops and soldiers.
Video on this one is pretty good. It’s most likely the same transfer as the Kino Lorber disc from 2014 but benefits from the modern processing. It’s a very clean and highly watchable 1080p at 1.78:1. Sound is in both English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround and LPCM 2.0 Stereo and sound fine as well. English SDH subs are on board. The special features of note and worth of your time are all brand new. There’s a very well researched commentary track with Ryan Verrill and Will Dodson of Someone’s Favorite Productions where they discuss pretty much everything you might want to know about the film, its development, filming and true-life inspirations and a fun video essay entitled From Noir Lineage to Phantom Source: Rethinking Mulholland Falls by film critic Dr. Clayton Dillard from Slant Magazine. There’s also some EPK material in the form of an archival making of featurette and a selection of EPK-style interview clips with the cast and crew, B-roll and the requisite theatrical trailer and TV spots.
MULHOLLAND FALLS (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B/B+/A/B+
FREEWAY
Jumping right back into true neo-noir, we land head-first into one of the stranger yet oddly satisfying cinematic treats to come out of the genre: Matthew Bright’s 1996 film Freeway. I was giddy the first time I saw this movie back in the early DVD days. How this film exists, with the pedigree it has, is a testament to artists that know talent when they see it and just hand themselves over. In what turns out to be a dark sideways walk through the same forest that Little Red Riding Hood lives in, the film follows trashy but street smart Vanessa Lutz (a severely game Reese Witherspoon) whose effed up family unit falls apart and to escape the system, she runs away to grandma’s house and lands smack dab in the crosshairs of Bob, a big bad played by Kiefer Sutherland in one of his greatest roles, to be honest (and I love him as Jack Bauer). He starts off sweet but ends up revealing himself to be a notorious serial killer. Vanessa quickly turns the tables on him but finds herself in prison when it’s her word against his. It just gets better and darker from there. Freeway is not for the faint of heart or anyone who is prone to clutch pearls, but it’s a fun film if you’re open to it and it features a stocked cast including Bokeem Woodbine, Brooke Shields, Amanda Plummer and Brittany Murphy. If you’re passing on this set but are intrigued, Vinegar Syndrome released a 4K version of this film. You can check out Stephen Bjork’s review here.
This is a 1080p version of that 4K transfer, and it looks great. Before this, the best version I had was that original DVD and this is leaps and bounds better, so there was not going to be any complaints from me—it’s presented in 1.78:1. Sound is a clear LPCM 2.0 Stereo with optional English subs. Extras include the audio commentary by director Bright pulled from the original LaserDisc, archival interviews with Matthew Bright, executive producer Oliver Stone, actress Amanda Plummer, and composer Danny Elfman (Bright was best friends with Danny’s brother Richard and helped write and acted in one of my favorite films Forbidden Zone, which may explain some things about both me and Bright). There’s also an episode of Trailers from Hell featuring Josh Olson, an archival reel of raw behind-the-scenes footage, some EPK interviews with cast and crew and the film’s trailer.
FREEWAY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): B-/A/A/B+
CITY OF INDUSTRY
We went from subversive with Wild at Heart, to eclectic with Unlawful Entry. We got a traditional remake with The Getaway and jumped into a throwback noir with Mulholland Falls. Then we did whatever the hell Freeway does and that brings us to the closer City of Industry, a like it or not, Tarantino-influenced 90s crime film with an unmistakable traditional British crime thriller pedigree thanks to the creative influences brought by legendary director John Irvin. City of Industry benefits from its various influences and ends up being something quite special. I feel like the title of the film confuses people because they don’t realize there’s an actual place called City of Industry in California. Like, this is just a cool turn of phrase to mark the greed that sits in the belly of this film—and its true, which may be why the title works. Harvey Keitel stars as Roy Egan, a retired thief who gets pulled into a jewelry heist staged by his brother Lee (Timothy Hutton). It’s not a spoiler to say that the heist goes really bad and the reason for that bad is Stephen Dorff’s Skip, who pulls the “splitting-the-money-one-way-is-better-than-four” double cross by killing Lee and the fourth man Jorge. He tries, but fails to kill Roy, who still takes some damage and rehabs at Jorge’s widow’s (Famke Janssen) place. That’s when the movie really starts, where Roy will stop at nothing to get the money back, get revenge for his brother’s murder and simply wipe the Earth clean of the weaselly Skip. It’s a good movie that has aged quite well. It’s basic but effective.
This is another of the upconverted 1080p presentations from an old master transfer. It looks similar to the 2017 Kino Lorber release, but it benefits from the modern work and looks... fine on this Blu-ray. It will definitely benefit from a new restoration, but unless you’re being super picky, you’ll enjoy the watch. The aspect ratio is 1.85:1. Sound is a good lossless stereo track (English LPCM 2.0 Stereo) with optional English subs. It has good play and comes alive here and there. Extras are a good mix of new and old. To start there is an alternate cut of the film, presented in standard definition (i.e., DVD quality). The only difference is a cut scene at the start of the film that UK censors felt overly showcased how to steal a car, so it was truncated. But that’s it. Neat to see, but somewhat pointless in the end. There is a brand-new audio commentary with John Irvin discussing the film, how it came to be, his involvement and his remembrances about the shoot. There’s also the commentary track from the 2017 Kino Lorber Blu-ray featuring filmmaker Steve Mitchell and Mondo Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson. It’s a standard third-party commentary that discusses style and production notes. There are also two new video interviews. One titled A Different Light where Famke Janssen discusses her pride in being able to break away from being a model turned cheesecake actress into being a fully realized and serious actress with this film. There’s also a new interview with composer Stephen Endelman, Dissonance and Melody, that discusses Endelman’s inspirations and how creating the industrial score influenced how he did future scores. Included with the new stuff is an archival making-of featurette, archival interviews with cast and crew, an archival behind-the-scenes footage and two theatrical trailers.
CITY OF INDUSTRY (FILM/VIDEO/AUDIO/EXTRAS): A/B-/A/A
This is a wonderful collection of films and the overall presentation is also great. All the films are individually collected in their own case, housed inside a well-made hardcase box packed with a mini-hardback booklet containing production stills and essays about each film across 126-pages. Walter Chaw writes about Wild at Heart, Travis Woods on Unlawful Entry, Patrick Bromley on The Getaway, Blake Howard on Mulholland Falls, Jerry J. Sampson on Freeway, and Roxana Hadadi on City of Industry. If this set is available to you, it’s well worth the effort to pull it into your library.
- Todd Doogan