Bandits is the story of Joe Blake(Bruce Willis) and Terry Lee Collins(Billy Bob Thornton), two bank robbers that break out of prison and go right back to robbing banks. They come up with a plan of staking out the bank to find out who's in charge and then they spend the night at the bank manager's home the night before they're going to rob the bank. Along the way they run into an unhappy housewife played by Cate Blanchett who's indecision as to which one of them she wants to be with could end up costing them their friendship.
Bandits is available from MGM on a two-sided disc that features the fullscreen version on one side and the widescreen version on the other. The widescreen version has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. As for the sound the movie comes with and english 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound audio track, a french 2 channel Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio track, a spanish 2 channel Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio track and a portuguese 2 channel Dolby Digital Stereo Surround audio track. Subtitles are also included in english, french, spanish and portuguese.
The special features included are four deleted scenes, an alternate ending, an Inside Bandits featurette, a Creating Scene 71 featurette and theatrical trailers.
Inside Bandits(20:40) is a detailed look at the making of the film. Unlike most making of's Inside Bandits has the cast and crew actually discussing the making of the film. The film, we learn, is based on the real life exploits of bank robbers Joseph W. Dougherty and Terry Lee Conner who would actually spend the night with bank manager's at their home the night before they robbed their bank. The featurette then goes on to document the making of the film from the writing of the script up until post-production. Interestingly enough we also learn that Bruce Willis was originally cast as Terry Lee Collins, Billy Bob Thornton's role, and Val Kilmer was cast as Joe Blake, Bruce Willis' role, but because of a scheduling conflinct Val Kilmer had to bow out and Billy Bob Thornton was called in.
Creating Scene 71(5:56) is an inside look at the creation of scene 71 from the film. In that scene Bruce Willis and Cate Blanchett share a bed in a hotel and Bruce Willis is quoting Lao Tsu's The Art Of War while Cate Blanchett is quoting the song Total Eclipse Of The Heart. This is kind of like Anatomy Of A Scene from the Sundance channel but since this featurette is much shorter less time is spent discussing the scene. After the featurette is finished playing you have the option of viewing the scene from the film or going back to the special features.
Rounding off the special features are four deleted scenes, including one that runs just over seven minutes, that were obviously cut from the film for pacing reasons, an alternate ending that features optional commentary by Cate Blanchett and theatrical trailers for Bandits, Windtalkers and Hart's War along with a trailer for the Special Edition DVD of Rocky and a Bandits soundtrack spot. The alternate ending is essentially the same scene that is seen during the end credits but with a little something different. You might have to listen to the commentary to find out what's been changed.
The film is pretty good and aside from the Inside Bandits featurette the special features aren't that great. If you liked the film and don't care that much about special features then I recommend bying Bandits but if you're looking for a great deal of special features I recommend renting it first and then you can make your own decision if you still want it.