Drug Wars: The Camarena Story
Artisan Entertainment
Cast: Benicio DelTorro, Craig T. Nelson, Miguel Ferrer, Treat Williams
Extras: Trailer
Rating:
Before ’Traffic’ there was a TV mini-series called ’Drug Wars: The Camarena Story’ and like the beforementioned, ’Drug Wars’ is a story about drug trafficking, the human and inhuman aspects of it, starring none other than Benicio DelTorro – this time as a drug kingpin. Also starring Miguel Ferrer, Craig T. Nelson and Treat Williams the film is certainly a riveting exploration of a real-life story with the touch of realism the subject matter needs to engage the viewer.
Artisan Home Entertainment is presenting ’Drug Wars’ in its original fullscreen aspect ratio on this DVD and the image quality is generally very good. There is some grain evident in the transfer and the edges appear a bit soft at times. As a result – I presume – Artisan has applied some edge-enhancement to the transfer to increase the sharpness, but unfortunately it also creates some visible, ringing artifacts around high-contrast edges. Color reproduction is good, though they appear bit washed out in certain shots. Black levels are solid, creating good visual depth. The compression of the material has been handled very well and no compression artifacts are evident.
’Drug Wars’ comes with a solid Dolby Stereo audio track that sounds very natural. The frequency response is wide and has good, though unexaggerated, basses and clear high ends. Dialogues are well integrated and never drowned out.
As supplements you will only find some text-screen outlining the story of the film, and its trailer on this DVD.
This is a solid release by Artisan, once again, and fans of these realism-based drug movies should definitely check it out.
