A Private War Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

A Private War Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 26, 2019

'A Private War' tells the story of a real-life combat journalist. This review discusses her life and career, which does include major spoilers for the film.

Director Matthew Heineman's (City of Ghosts) A Private War details the late Marie Colvin's combat journalism tours of duty. She was a London Sunday Times war correspondent who died in Homs, Syria in 2012. The film chronicles her personal responses to the horrors she witnessed on the front lines of conflict through several of the world's most dangerous conflict areas though the first decade of the 21st century. More, the film also explores her own physical scars and inner demons that both challenged her emotional well being and drove her to expose the truth of the Syrian civil war to the world. The picture is unmistakably and unabashedly grim, both in its depiction of warfare and in its depiction of Colvin's personal crises, the post traumatic stress disorder that shaped her life and career and her dedication to her work and to helping others that ultimately cost her her life. As the film depicts, she died doing what she knew to be right.

Marie's purpose.

London Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike) travels to Sri Lanka in 2001 to cover conflict where she is gravely wounded, losing function of her left eye. She is honored with a “Foreign Correspondent of the Year” award. But cushy award ceremonies with free flowing wine are not where she belongs. She returns to duty in Iraq in 2003, alongside veteran combat photographer Paul Conroy (Jamie Dornan), where she organizes an expedition to unearth mass graves. The event traumatizes her, breaking her spirit, leading to a long road of emotional recovery from an adult life marred by both physical and emotional pains. She returns to the filed in 2009, embedded with US forces in Afghanistan, where she again bears witness to the horrors and sufferings of war. She travels to Libya in 2011 at the end of the Gaddafi reign, interviewing the despot in his final days. In 2012, she enters the city of Homs, the bloody, hopeless center of the Syrian civil war where she finds renewed purpose in exposing President Bashar al-Assad's lies and doing all she can to wake the world to civilian suffering in the city.

The film’s focal point is not on the conflicts Colvin covers but rather her own reflection, exploring how combat journalism changed her both outwardly and inwardly. Her coverage corners her into dark places, almost metaphorically behind her eyepatch, which also, in a way, helps her to again metaphorically, and later literally when the patch is removed while working in Syria, see the world around her more clearly through the chaos and carnage around her. But the film’s stays steady on her own mental and emotional swings. She is scarred both physically and emotionally but gradually finds her strength and a steadfast determination to not only report the news but alert the world to the atrocities in Homs.

Pike is terrific in shaping a troubled but determined character in dealing with the crises both of the moment and within her soul. She believably, and fiercely, exposes her mental instability and gritty determination in the most terrifying conditions, both as they exist in the worlds around her and within her own soul. The Golden Globe-nominated work carefully builds the character from the inside out, and Pike is more than up to the challenge of finding and presenting the character’s complicated inner and outer demons and determinations in one of the most raw and captivating performances of 2018.

A Private War Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Private War's digitally sourced 1080p transfer reveals some noise in more challenging lower light and grim scenes, including some of the dreary, bombed-out locales seen in Homs in the final act. The image is otherwise very strong, capably revealing fine-point textural accuracy and intimacy across the board. Various terrains, from sandy and rocky Afghanistan to bombed-out rubble and debris-strewn hideaways in Homs are highlights. The image reveals every ragged, jagged surface and the clarity and precision effortlessly draw the viewer into the horrors. Facial complexities are revealed with high yield efficiency and clarity. Fine object detail, from guns to cameras, never falter from a high point of revelatory clarity. Colors are a little muted and the movie is meant to appear flat and grim. Red blood, some natural greens, and various colors of clothing and location specifics back in London are handled well, as are little, but crucial, elements like characters awash in the glow emanating from a computer screen in low light situations. Black levels are handled fairly well and skin tones appear accurate within the film's visual style and any given scene's lighting constraints. The film has been efficiently encoded, revealing no troubling banding, macroblocking, or the like.

A Private War Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack offers nicely defined bustle around the news offices in the film's opening minutes and moments later in Sri Lanka, where insects, birds, and distant explosions dot the sonic landscape. Crowd applause and vocal reverberation at the awards dinner in chapter three offer impressive stage immersion and detail. But the track is at its best during intense war zone sequences. Gunfire cracks with an authentic zip and depth. Surround speakers carry various shots across several different conflict zones seen throughout the film, and those coming out of Homs in the film's final act are particularly terrifying with strong pop and immersion into the location, with special emphasis on bullet slams into various surfaces. Explosions deliver extremely potent bass. The 5.1 configuration sends shrapnel and debris hurtling through the stage with alarming accuracy that draws the listener into the terrifying world of modern civil war. Dialogue is clear and center focused for the duration.

A Private War Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

A Private War contains three extras. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase. This release ships with an embossed slipcover.

• Becoming Marie Colvin (1080p, 3:45): A character and story recap followed by a look at Pike's performance as Colvin, including her real and practiced physical changes during the shoot.
• Women in the World Summit Q&A (1080i, 9:52): Tina Brown, founder and CEO of Tina Brown Live Media/Women in the World, sits down with Director Matthew Heineman and Actors Jamie Dornan and Rosamund Pike to discuss Colvin and the film based on her life.
• Requiem for A Private War (1080p, 1:31): A quick look at the song Annie Lennox wrote for the film.

A Private War Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A Private War is an unforgivingly grim, true-life account of Journalist Marie Colvin's life in combat zones around the world and death during the Syrian civil war. The film is raw and real and unflinchingly brutal on the spirit. Pike's performance is first-rate. Universal's Blu-ray features top-end video and audio. A few extras are included. Recommended.