Private Gold 20: Dead Man's Wish Review

Distributor: Private Edition Details: Standard DVD Movie Specs: Genres: Feature Film, Foreign Also known as: Dead Man's Wish (worth dyin' for) Run Time: 88 minutes Rated: XXX Release Year: 1997 Director: Christophe Clark Written by: Christophe Clark Cast: Mona Lisa, Christophe Clark, Katarina Martinez, Alexa Shiffer (as Marylin), Katalyn (as Fanny), Victoria (as Sylvia), Nikita, Kathy Kash (as Cathy Cash), Regina Sipos (as Regina), Philippe Dean (as Phillipe Dean), Richard Lengin (as Richard Langlin), Jolth Walton (as John Walton), Mike Foster, Andrew Youngman, Clarisse Release Specs: Audio: French Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (dubbed), English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, German Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (dubbed), Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (dubbed), Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (dubbed) Subtitles: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Portugese, Polish Video: Full Frame, 1.33:1 Video Format: NTSC Format: DVD Regional Code (for DVD/Blu-ray): 0 (All) Number of discs: 1 Disc: DVD 9 (SS, DL) Special Features: Cast, Photobook, Production Notes, Other Titles DVD-ROM Special Features: Internet Activated DVD Catalog

Synopsis:
Christophe Clark gets off on watching other people fuck. When his doctor gives him one week to live, determined to enjoy his last week of live, Clark hires four guys and some prostitutes to come to his house so he can watch them go at it. He ends up turning his place into a giant orgy.

Video/Audio:
Dead Man's Wish is presented in the full frame aspect ratio, 1.33:1, which appears to be the original aspect ratio for the film. The video is free from blemishes and artifacts and the picture is crystal clear.

The original audio track for Dead Man's Wish appears to be the 2.0 English Stereo track. This “English” track is partially in English and partially in French, so unless you speak both languages you are left in the dark on some of the dialog. The dialog is clear and easy to hear throughout the film. There are also 2.0 dub stereo tracks in the following languages: French, German, Spanish and Italian and there are subtitles for Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Portuguese and Polish.

Chapters/Time Code:
There are 10 chapters available from the main menu for Dead Man's Wish, which allows for decent navigation through the feature film. There is a time code for this film, so time searching is also available.

Special Features:
The extras for Dead Man's Wish are Cast, which is a short biography and a filmography for Private VHS, Private DVD and Private Magazine for the following cast members: Cathy Cash, Katalina, Katrina Martinez, Marylin, Mona Lisa, Nikita, Regina and Victoria. Photobook is a collection of 54 photos from the feature film that you flip through. Production Notes is a text feature regarding the film and the stars. Other titles are previews for Intrigue & Pleasure, Love Me Deadly, The Private Life of Cassandra Wild, Superfuckers 5, and Private Reality 3. There isn't much for extras here and none really compliment the film.

DVD-ROM Special Features:
The DVD-ROM extra for Dead Man's Wish is the Internet Activated DVD Catalog. Since I don't have a DVD-ROM drive, no further information is available on this extra.

Review:
Dead Man's Wish is another older Private film being released on disc and, frankly, it should probably have been left unreleased. As true to the Private standard, the women are very good looking and not as “enhanced” as the average American adult female stars appear to be these days, especially Mona Lisa and Marylin. The men end up being far more average than usual for Private in this outing though.

The sex in the film is fairly decent too, although geared to the fans of nastier sex. There is good variety throughout the sex scenes featuring vaginal, anal and oral sex with some titty fucking and foot fucking and for those who enjoy it, some A2M.

So, with nice females, decent males and decent sex, how can the film get such a low rating? Unfortunately that's all this disjointed film has going for it. The story quickly gets lost, possibly partly due to the fact that about 70 percent of the dialog in the English track is in French. The lost story line seems to exist only to allow viewers to say “What the fuck?” in between the sex scenes.

The crystal clear picture allows you to see in perfect digital quality how amateurish the production values of the film are. Lousy and often distracting “visual effects” clutter several scenes. The most popular of these “visual effects” is to blur the picture for some of the quick camera moves. I can only hope this “effect” was the result of a compression or mastering problem and was not purposely done to the film. Another major technical issue is that in some scenes the colored lighting is so intense that it creates a halo around parts of the images in those scenes.

One final question that keeps racking my brain is, if he only has one week to live, why does Christophe's character video tape everything? He won't be around to enjoy it. Or was this just an excuse to get some additional camera angles for the actual film?

The Money Shot:
Unfortunately I can't recommend this film to anyone. The end result is a mangled mess that, despite the decent sex scenes, becomes a chore to watch. As for the diehard Private fans, I recommend that you rent this film before buying to make sure that it is really something that you want to grace your disc shelves. If you are only interested in the sex scenes, this film may be salvageable, but beyond that, it is a waste of the plastic it is encased in.

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