211 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

211 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 28, 2018

Nicolas Cage is a bonafide superstar...these days within the direct to video landscape. The Actor has made the transition quite smoothly and seems to embrace it more so than some of his counterparts who ignited the screen in the 1990s but seemed to largely fall out of favor with the A-list Hollywood productions. These recent roles are not a challenge for him, but Cage appears to take on all of the red meat the parts offer in an attempt to elevate otherwise simplistic and simpleminded movies into something a bit more palatable than the everyday run-of-the-mill time killer. His latest is 211 in which he plays a Massachusetts cop who finds himself caught up in the middle of a deadly shoot-out with several heavily armed bank robbers. The film efforts to wrench in a little more heart and characterization along the way than it really needs, but Cage can only do so much to elevate largely bland, cliché material and second-rate moviemaking into anything much more than a quasi-agreeable time waster.

Four heavily armed men, all ex-military and seeking a big payday, descend on an unassuming Massachusetts bank where they have been told that no less than one million dollars is sitting in the vault, ripe for the picking. Their plan is executed with precision but a wrench is thrown in the works when a pair of cops -- Mike Chandler (Nicolas Cage) and his son-in-law and soon-to-be father Steve MacAvoy (Dwayne Cameron) -- notice something out of the ordinary while on a quick donut stop across the street. A bomb explodes at a nearby café, planted by one of the robbers, in an effort to distract police. But Mike and Steve, who are also hosting a supposed troublemaking teenager named Kenny (Michael Rainey Jr.) as part of a ride-along program, engage the getaway driver, and all hell breaks loose. As the officers attempt to protect their charge, numerous cops swarm onto the scene but find themselves hopelessly outgunned even as they outnumber the assailants many times over.

The film is slow to build and its introductory character scenes are largely victimized by substandard acting. Steve and Lisa's aside about her pregnancy is nearly cringe-inducing on one hand and borderline comical on the other, the former for the generic framing and poor delivery and the latter for the nearly obscene free fall into genre cliché only minutes into the movie. Despite the proper music and tight shots that reveal the characters’ basic emotional responses, there’s no connection between them and the audience. It’s just pushed to the forefront to get it out there, obviously setting it up to capitalize on that added personal drama later in the film. And to its credit, when the moment comes it tugs on the heartstrings a bit. Sloppy and trite as the delivery may be in the payoff, there’s an underlying sincerity that allows the audience to feel the pain when the issue surfaces later in the picture, but even then the overwhelming lean on cliché threatens to destroy the slow-drip build of goodwill.

To the film’s credit, that storyline also impacts Cage's Mike Chandler, who is to be the child's grandfather and who is also struggling with loss, though the film all but makes his problems a passing note rather than a focal centerpiece. All the better, honestly, because most of the character building moments only really interfere with the mainline story (as do entirely superfluous characters, like Alexandra Dinu's Agent Rossi). The film struggles to identify positive routes for its narrative tentacles to take. There are a few touching moments between Chandler and his charge, the teenage bully victim who finds himself caught in the crossfire. Kenny is painted as a loner, a very intelligent and resourceful individual whose skills are used only to allow him to craft a makeshift battery so he can call his mother from his dead cell phone while hiding in a car from the gunfire. The character's rather flat arc takes a rather sharp upward turn at the very end when he finds himself in his most dangerous predicament of the ordeal, but his actions leave no feel of satisfaction or even resolution. It's a rather flat and somewhat cold moment that is neither rousing for the viewer or all that emotionally charged for the character.

All of that said, the movie does build some honest tension once it gets going, when the character pleasantries give way to the meat-and-potatoes violence the film plops on the plate in generous portions. The shootout scenes lack the precision filmmaking excellence and boiler plate intensity of the best cops-and-robbers shootout movies -- think Heat or Den of Thieves -- but the sheer volume of noise and gunfire at least partially mask the low budget nature and amateurish craftsmanship that attempts to copycat the big boys on a comparatively shoestring budget. The add of the teenage ride-along (whose mother is charged with guiding the local hospital’s triage unit to care for both the bombing and gunshot victims) rises the level of tension and danger, an innocent caught in the middle of a swarm of violence, at least outside off the gaggle of hostages in the bank. The film moves at a relatively rapid pace once the bullets begin to fly with only the occasional veer away for some shoddy acting and unnecessary fill-ins, especially that aforementioned moment when the pregnancy comes back into play. Mostly, however, the movie focuses on the carnage once it gets going.

211 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

211 was shot utilizing what appears to be a lower end digital setup, producing a picture that's highly textured but also a bit flat and a little noisy even in good light. But textural efficiency is very strong. Environments are effortlessly crisp, military gear and police wear are super sharp, and skin definition is consistently revealing both in close-up and beyond out farther from the lens. Colors push a little to the flat end of the spectrum, with faces in particular lacking extreme saturation, but police uniforms, ambulances, blood, and some other more intensive objects are home to colors that are perfectly balanced and well suited to the presentation. Black levels appear firm and beyond the aforementioned noise there's not much in the way of distracting source or encode flaws.

211 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

An explosion in the film's opening minutes hits very hard, presenting with powerful stage filling bass. Gunshots tear throughout the listening area with firm pop, zip, and traversal. 211 begins with action in the Middle East but quickly transitions to Massachusetts, and the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack doesn't miss a beat. The action remains fairly intensive, with gunshots striking from every channel, a few bass-happy explosions pounding in, and surrounds picking up all sorts of action, both primary and smaller support elements alike. In the track's downtime, minor, but not insignificant, natural ambient effects filter into the stage with positive positioning and immersion, whether light exterior support or more intensive din inside a police station at the 25-minute mark. Dialogue remains a strong point whether in quieter moments or during high octane action. Prioritization is always a plus and clarity and positioning are just fine.

211 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

211 contains one supplement, the self-explaining Interviews with Cast and Crew (1080p, 42:34 total runtime), that breaks down into many smaller pieces. The breakouts include Nicolas Cage, Michael Rainey Jr., Sophie Skelton, Dwayne Cameron, Cory Hardrict, Ori Pfeffer, Weston Cage, Sean James, Writer/Director York Shackleton, and Producer Jonathan Yunger. This release ships with no DVD or digital versions.

211 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

211 finds itself caught in the middle ground, well above cinema's dregs but hardly leading the pack, either. It does well enough given its limited budget and some overstuffed and cliché plot points. Cage is serviceable in the lead and the rest of the actors don't move the needle at all. Action is voluminous but not particularly wells staged or large in scope. This is a very watchable midline movie, flawed in many ways but more than capable as a decent little genre time waster. Momentum's Blu-ray delivers very good video and audio and about 45 minutes worth of cast and crew interview footage. Recommended.