Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

American Renegades Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 23, 2019

Luc Besson might appropriately be thought of as one of the chief cinematic visionaries of his generation, though some may feel like that vision evidently doesn’t extend to mundane, everyday matters like running a business. As has been documented in a number of troubling articles in various industry news outlets over the past few years, Besson’s Europa Corporation has been struggling, to put it mildly, for quite some time, a struggle that turned “catastrophic” (in the words of one such news report) after Besson was accused of rape in 2018. It may be part of Europa’s “fire sale” that American Renegades is being proffered on Blu-ray now in the United States, when it reportedly had a (brief?) theatrical exhibition in Germany and France in September of 2017. (A Variety article suggests the film had a — brief? — theatrical exhibition stateside around Christmas last year, but I sure never saw it advertised in the Portland market.) American Renegades plays at times like a “very special episode” of The A-Team, with a bunch of bantering military types engaging in a patently loony escapade that sees them attempting to free a cache of Nazi gold bullion that is hopelessly submerged in a Bosnian lake that was “created” in the waning days of World War II. That kind of weird plot element is doled out in a well done prologue that takes place in August of 1944, when the Germans were already aware they were almost certainly fated to lose the war, and had begun desperate measures to safeguard the treasures they had absconded with over the previous several years. A huge Nazi mission involving loot like priceless art and literally tons of gold bullion is shown being taken to what was then Yugoslavia, where for some reason the Nazis also decide to slaughter the townspeople, though that particular element is only hinted at. Unfortunately for the Nazis, Resistance fighters are up in them thar hills, and they dynamite a nearby dam, bringing the Nazi mission to a rather spectacularly watery close. One sole child has managed to escape the maelstrom, and of course his legacy plays into the plot proceedings once things segue forward several decades to the late 1990s.

One of the interesting thing about Besson’s reported business tribulations is that at least some of his big budget epics have actually done remarkably well at the box office, it’s just that those selfsame big budgets have meant that due to either actual realities or the vagaries of the film industry’s sometimes creative accounting methods, some efforts like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets haven’t officially shown a profit despite having raked in literally hundreds of millions of dollars globally. (Interestingly, this film, now pretty dated as a home theater item, is first at bat in terms of the extra trailers Lionsgate loads at disc boot up, which might subliminally suggest that Besson is in the background there, trying to get rid of any remainder stock.) Besson’s profligacy as a producer is certainly on display in this film, including the rather well done (if brief) recreation of the Nazi era, as well as other probably costly elements, as in the surplus of underwater sequences this film employs.

The film's more contemporary set plotline deals with a ragtag group of Navy SEALS, two of whom are attempting to do a bit of undercover work as the film begins. While their mission to "rendition" a Serbian military criminal called General Milic (Peter Davor) is successful, it results in comically overdone damage to the town, including the sinking of a tank, something that lands the boys in major trouble with their superior Rear Admiral Levin (J.K. Simmons, in "Lee Ermey mode"). When the SEALS are given a few days off to think about how they might handle things better, one of them, Stanton Baker (Charlie Bewley), starts a romance with a local barmaid named Lara Simic (Sylvia Hoeks). Unsurprisingly, Lara turns out to be a descendant of the little boy seen in the film's opening vignette, and she reveals to Stanton and the other SEALS that there's a huge cache of bullion waiting in the watery depths where her ancestral town once was. And so the "high" (or, in this case, "low") concept of the film is set in motion, with the SEALS determined to help Lara retrieve the loot, in the hopes that it can provide some economic infusion for the war torn and poverty prone region.

It's all relentlessly silly, of course, and the film has a few too many villainous sidebars for its own good, but director Steven Quale at least keeps things moving briskly enough, and there are some nicely staged action sequences, including some impressive underwater scenes. There will be very few if any questions as to where any of this is headed, but the film doesn't take itself too seriously, and for those wanting an undemanding adrenaline rush, it may get the job done well enough, if ultimately not very memorably.

American Renegades Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

American Renegades is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists the ever popular Arri Alexa XT as the camera of choice on this shoot, and while there's no actual data on IMDb about the DI, I'm assuming everything was finished at 2K. I often talk about "digital murk", something that I personally tend to notice more in Arri captured material than with RED or other technologies, and for anyone wondering what I'm talking about, some of the underwater material provides excellent examples. While there's of course a probably unavoidable murkiness simply due to the underwater element itself, even relatively brightly lit close-ups suffer from haziness and a lack of detail. There are actually a couple of dimly lit "above water" moments that exhibit these same issues. There are also some brief flirtations with banding that are perhaps more noticeable than usual because they afflict scenes shot up toward light from underneath the water. All of this said, the bulk of the film provides a nicely suffused palette and some nice fine detail levels, especially in close-ups. Some of the CGI isn't especially convincing, but many of the practical effects look fine.

American Renegades Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

American Renegades features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides nice surround activity in some of the big action set pieces, as in the blowing up of the dam in the waning days of World War II, or the calamitous chase in the 1990s that ends with a tank going off a bridge. "Immersion" is noticeable in more ways than one in this film as it ventures under the water, and there's a nicely rendered feeling of claustrophobia in the rather long "watery" sequences. Dialogue, effects and score are all presented cleanly and clearly with good prioritization and no problems whatsoever.

American Renegades Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Covert Operation: Story & Cast (1080p; 12:18) is an okay EPK with some enjoyable interviews and lots of snippets from the film.


• Keeping It Real: Production Design & Shooting on Location (1080p; 11:35) has some fun behind the scenes footage as it looks at some of the more technical aspects of the shoot.


• Can Do It Attitude: Stunts, Weapons & Vehicles (1080p; 10:36) offers enjoyable looks at some of the more testerone fueled elements of the film.


• Underwater Adversity: A Deep Dive Heist (1080p; 10:47) focuses on the film's beneath the surface conceit.

American Renegades Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

American Renegades has one of the gonzo premises that you just need to surrender to. The film is resolutely predictable about every step of the way, and that element may undercut the already wobbly conceit more than the actual execution of any individual scene. Technical merits are generally solid for those considering a purchase.