A stylish piece of neo-noir, D.O.A. was directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel during their glory days as creators of Max Headroom. Sometimes mocked at the time for its extravagant visual imagery, this is a film which has aged better than might have been expected. Vastly reworked from the 40s original, D.O.A. stars Dennis Quaid as the burned-out campus novelist who discovers he has been fatally poisoned and sets out to find his killer in the short time left to him, along the way rediscovering his love for the life he is going to lose. Quaid is good enough both... at chain-smoking cynicism and angry zest that this becomes emotionally credible; a worryingly young Meg Ryan is excellent as the hero-worshipping sophomore he co-opts into his search. With camerawork of sometimes hallucinatory vividness, rather too many shots of fans and Ferris wheels, and Charlotte Rampling playing a dragon-lady villainess to the hilt, this is a film which teeters on the brink of camp, but has the courage of its individuality. On the DVD: D.O.A. comes to disc with almost no special features whatever save for a Spanish soundtrack and subtitles in Spanish and the Scandinavian languages. Its widescreen visual aspect is 1.85:1 and the Dolby sound does full justice to a very loud score by bands like Timbuk 3.--Roz Kaveney [show more]
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