Erin Brockovich (2000)

Things aren't going too well for Erin Brockovich and when her car is trashed, and her neck injured, in a car accident she uses nearly all of her savings fighting for compensation. Unfortunately, her temper gets the better of her in court and her case fails leaving her jobless, penniless and fuming with anger with her attorney Ed Masry. Desperate for cash she harasses him until he finally gives in and gives her a job as a research assistant.

With little interesting work to do she picks up a huge pile and papers and starts to read a case against a huge multi-national company called the Pacific Gas and Electric Company and one of their electrical plants located in the desert community of Hinckley in California. The residents have been experiencing an abnormally high number of serious illnesses and miscarriages and PG&E had gone to great lengths to assure the community that they were not in any way related to the their huge site. The company even paid for, and brought in, a group of medical professionals and toxicologists to allay the community's growing fears.

Sifting through the thousands of pages of documents she becomes completely engrossed in the case and eventually stumbles across some interesting information. Erin takes up the challenge of fighting for the victims and exposes a huge cover-up by PG&E which results in one of the biggest class action lawsuits in American history against a multi-billion dollar corporation.

The picture is bright, clear and sharp with no signs of artifacting and has an average bit-rate throughout the film. The many out door scenes in the desert area of Hinckley were handled superbly and are a shining example of what the DVD technology can offer. There's no way the humble video could offer such clarity and definition.

The sound is clear with the dialogue locked in the centre channel with no bleeding. As this film is dialogue based there is little use of the surround channels, other than for the musical score, and it was to be expected that there were little, or no, LFE's of interest.

The menu is simple, but extremely effective. It is scored as well as being animated with sections from the film. If you've become accustomed to the plentiful extras offered by Columbia Tri-Star then you won't be disappointed.

Considering the film's is based on serious real life events there are some quite funny moments in the film. The chemistry between Julia Roberts and Albert Finney is just great as the pair let fly with a barrage of insults with the final one between the pair being the best as Ed gets his revenge. This must be Julia Roberts' best film to date and must seriously be considered as Oscar material.