The nineties were the golden age of the thriller. Every other week, a star-driven thriller seemed to open in theaters, to the point that everyone took them for granted after a little while, and the genre dried up. Many of the best examples of the genre, like Basic Instinct, Single White Female, Jennifer 8, and others, hold up quite well in retrospect. One of my favourites has always been Jonathan Kaplan’s Unlawful Entry, which I did a Best Movie You Never Saw video about not long ago.
In it, Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe play a likeable yuppie couple rocked by a home invasion. A friendly cop, played by the late, great Ray Liotta, helps them out, and soon, he becomes a trusted friend and part of their lives. However, in classic Liotta fashion, he turns out to be a raving psychopath with designs on Stowe, leading to the white-collar Russell being forced to defend his wife and home with his life.
Unlawful Entry was a sizeable hit when it came out in 1992, grossing over $55 million, but funny enough – it never made its way to Blu-ray, until now. Granted, a DVD was widely available (I have it in a collection with another Russell classic, Executive Decision), and it’s always been available to stream. Still, for physical media die-hards that are fans of the film – well, they were out of luck.
Thankfully, Shout Factory has acquired the rights to this gem and are giving it a solid special edition re-issue with extra interviews, an updated transfer, and more.
Here are the features (via Blu-Ray.com)
- NEW Unrestrained Realism: Inside The Films of Jonathan Kaplan – A Retrospective Interview With Director Jonathan Kaplan
- NEW Too Tightly Wound: Inside The Filming of Unlawful Entry – An Interview With Cinematographer Jamie Anderson
- NEW Symphonic Intruder: Inside The Thriller Scores Of James Horner – A Retrospective Interview With Film Music Historian Daniel Schweiger
- Audio Commentary With Director Jonathan Kaplan
- Vintage Making-Of Featurette
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spots
If you haven’t seen Unlawful Entry, give it a shot. It’s a gem. I look forward to getting it on Blu-ray when Shout puts it out on January 30th.
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