The Rocket
January 2008 Reviewed by: Mischa Hayek Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Originally released in Quebec in 2005 as Maurice Richard, Charles Binamé’s The Rocket is one of the best sports movies that you will see. A low-budget French-Canadian production, The Rocket tells the true-life story of Maurice "Rocket" Richard, who played for the Montreal Canadians in the National Hockey League from 1942 through 1960. "The Rocket" set the famous scoring record of 50 goals in 50 games and was the first player to ever score 500 goals. But he was more than just a hockey player. He was a personal hero to many French Canadians who felt that the system was against them, that big business was run by the English ("les anglais") and that the French were the discriminated-against poor.

This particular DVD release contains the following additional materials: "A Tribute to Maurice Richard, The Rocket," deleted scenes, and the US movie trailer. The tribute to Maurice Richard is in French with English subtitles and consists largely of clips from the film and personal tributes to Richard by the actors and director. Normally this would be boring, but I was moved by the obvious and true admiration. If Binamé’s film does not convince you how important "The Rocket" was to French Canadians, then this tribute certainly will. The deleted scenes come with the director’s explanation of why they were left out. The explanations are always welcome, but unfortunately they are seldom included in bonus materials.

The picture quality of The Rocket is surprisingly poor; it’s a very recent movie and most transfers of current films are quite good. However, while the image matches the muted color palette that I saw in the theater, there’s a lack of detail and very poor contrast throughout. It should be much better.

The overall sound quality is superior to the picture, but is still not optimal compared to what was offered in the theater. The Rocket is mostly a French-language film, but with some English; after all, it is a French-Canadian-made film. Thus, in English-speaking Canada, when the film was shown in theaters, subtitles were added for the French-speaking scenes, while there were obviously no subtitles for English. However, what the viewer gets here are two language versions: one is a poorly dubbed all-English version that completely misses the emotion of the actors; the other is with French and English spoken, just like in the theater, but with English subtitles for everything, including the English-speaking scenes as well as sound effects. In fact, it’s not really subtitling at all, but closed-captioning for those with impaired hearing.

Despite these weaknesses, Charles Binamé’s The Rocket is well worth viewing on DVD. I just wish that Universal Studios had done a better job on the DVD transfer. This film deserves much more consideration than it was given.

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