Across their long careers, Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder only worked together once via 1970's Start the Revolution Without Me. However, viewers got their money's worth, as both actors play two characters.

Circa mid-18th century France, two sets of identical twins get confused and mismatched with their respective parents. This leaves Philippe (Wilder) and Pierre de Sisi (Sutherland) as the wealthy children of aristocrats while Charles (Sutherland) and Claude Coupé (Wilder) wind up poor and orphaned.

In 1789, King Louis XVI (Hugh Griffith) deals with a peasant revolt. As this heats up, the pairs of brothers end up swapped when the de Sisis end up on the streets and the Coupés among the elite.

A look at the filmography of director Bud Yorkin reveals a decidedly spotty list of movies – well, as the head honcho. Yorkin gets some notice as an executive producer on 1982’s classic Blade Runner, and he enjoyed a good career as a TV producer with Norman Lear.

But as a film director, Yorkin’s career shows an erratic roster of productions. Does Start fall into that same category?

Yeah, to some degree, as Start never threatens to become a classic comedy. Still, it musters reasonable amusement.

We can give the actors much of the credit. Neither Wilder nor Sutherland breaks a sweat, but they manage to add some spark to their dual roles and they display good chemistry together.

Start throws a lot at the wall and only some of it sticks. Yorkin doesn’t depict all of this in a consistent manner but he manages to move matters along at a good enough pace.

Really, Start lacks much of a plot, as the narrative exists more for comedic shenanigans. Again, some of these gags work and some don’t, but enough of them show spark to keep up amused.

At no point does Start threaten to become a classic comedy. Nonetheless, it boasts enough humor to make it an enjoyable little romp.

Start the Revolution Without Me appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. I felt pleased with this satisfying presentation.

Overall delineation looked pretty good. Thanks to the source, a handful of mildly soft shots emerged, but most of the movie brought appealing accuracy.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed appropriate and I witnessed no print flaws.

The film’s palette leaned on the earthy side of natural. The colors looked well-rendered and popped to life when it made sense.

Blacks appeared dark and deep, while shadows displayed positive clarity. This turned into a quality image.

One also shouldn’t expect much from the ordinary DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack of Start. Speech tended to seem a bit thick and dense, but the lines remained intelligible and without edginess.

Neither effects nor music showed much range, and they could seem a bit shrill or rough at times. Nonetheless, they remained adequate given the age of the mix, so this ended up as a perfectly acceptable mix for a movie from 1970.

A few extras flesh out the disc, and the big attraction comes from an audio commentary with director Bud Yorkin and actors Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder. All three sat separately for an edited look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, other aspects of their careers and a variety of connected issues.

Yorkin clearly dominates this track, as I would estimate his remarks cover over half the discussion. Most of the remaining time involves Wilder, as we barely hear from Sutherland.

While it disappoints me that all three men didn’t participate in a commentary with each other, the end result brings a pretty good view of the film. Wilder offers intriguing notes about how he found his characters and the overall package delivers a quality examination of the flick.

Along with the movie’s trailer, we find two animated shorts. We get 1956’s Napoleon Bunny-Part (7:11) and 1948’s The Scarlet Pumpernickel (7:06).

Via Bunny-Part, Bugs spars with Emperor Napoleon in the early 19th century. It offers a fairly amusing affair.

Scarlet shows that Daffy Duck tires of being typecast as a comedic actor so he touts himself as the lead in an action flick. Expect another fine short.

A madcap comedy that plays with French history for laughs, Start the Revolution Without Me manages reasonable entertainment value. While it lacks consistency, it hits the mark often enough to become a lively ride. The Blu-ray offers very good picture, appropriate audio and supplements highlighted by a good commentary. This winds up as a fun enough romp.