Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie Review

The Devil's Transfer.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 14, 2020

Minimal mystery and rising romance give shape to Angel Eyes, a decently well made little movie from Director Luis Mandoki (Born Yesterday, Trapped) that follows a wayward, goodhearted, but deeply wounded soul and his relationship with the police officer who saved his life only to prolong his grief. The movie offers little mental challenge and only modest emotional draw. It dismisses extreme thrills and deep mystery in favor of a slowly developing story of rediscovery and romance in the wake of tragedy. Mandoki asks his audience to invest in the relationship and fall for the characters rather than settle in for more-of-the-same kinetic Thriller-style beats. There's little replay value but the movie works well as casual escapism with just a thin enough veil to keep interested audiences watching as it slowly comes down from around, and between, the characters.

It's been a year since Chicago cop Sharon Pogue (Jennifer Lopez) saved a man from a terrible automobile accident. She's single and not particularly skilled at the so-called "dating game." Her only real friends are on the force and she's even found herself estranged from her family following her own intervention and arrest of her father. But things change when she meets a mysterious man she comes to know only as "Catch" (Jim Caviezel), a man who lives his life in the service of others and whose good deeds are often ignored or earn him a negative response. It's clear they're attracted to one another, but his distance and her awkwardness in romance lead to a stilted relationship that is slow to fully blossom. As it does, Catch slowly opens up about who he is and how he lives while Sharon gradually uncovers the truth about a dark past that has fundamentally transformed him from the inside out.

Angel Eyes is not a movie of mystery but rather real pain and recovery in romance. It's about two wounded individuals finding one another, meeting by chance -- or perhaps fate -- at a life-changing moment that, for one, rewrites destiny and, for the other, opens a new chapter moving forward, at least in time. The picture's supposed surprises are not revealed until the end, but there's little question as to what's happened to Catch. Perhaps the absolute specifics remain shrouded until a final moments flashback, but the movie makes no overt efforts to hide emotional scars from the audience. It's a melancholic exploration of love through pain, for one man's deep emotional scars that have since been blotted out of existence and for another a new chance at an old pursuit that has previously never born any fruit. It's a relationship that's all but meant to be, and the movie finds most of its drama from the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, of how it evolves over time and within the prism of both of their pasts and presents and prospects for the future.

Both Lopez and Caviezel turn in gentle, heartfelt performances, perhaps both somewhat limited by the movie's relative lack of truly veiled secrets, but both perform with admirable depth and character building, feeding off their own checkered pasts and wounded souls. Chemistry evolves gradually; there's a spark from the moment the two first make eye contact, at least on-screen and obvious to the audience, a moment that is broken by violence. The movie does an admirable, if not incomplete, job at defining the characters separately in the first act; ideas are introduced but come across as a little stilted and unfulfilling beyond the necessary character beats they introduce, but the actors are strong enough to turn a script of occasionally shortsighted or stymied qualities through sheer will of performance excellence and depth alone.

Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony's pressed MOD (Manufactured on Demand) Blu-ray release of Angel Eyes borders on disaster. Severe wobble and interlacing artifacts accompany the inauspicious opening titles. Add in plainly visible jagged edges on power lines and the opening minutes do not portend a quality experience. Sadly, such issues remain for the entirety of the presentation. Look at a scene at the seven-minute mark when Catch knocks on a door to report keys hanging out of the lock. The girl's phone and shirt and horrifically jagged. The scene looks so bad it's nearly unwatchable. In the next scene, characters in profile show stair stepped noses and jaggies around eyes. These are regularly occurring eyesores that appear in practically very shot, and often to image breaking intensity. Additionally, the image has a mildly processed appearance to it. It's flat, the occasional splotch appears, and edge enhancement is not uncommon. On the flip side, details fare well enough, with basic facial, clothing, and city environments adequately defined. There's nothing in terms of textural might to truly satisfy, but the picture presents the basics in accordance with core, if not nowadays crude, expectations for a lower grade 1080p presentation. Colors are fine, with little evidence of fading and good and bright city light sources at night, adequately saturated tones in daylight, solid black levels, and decent skin that only pushes partially pasty. The presentation's flaws are unfortunate and atypical of a Sony release. The studio's flubs are few and far between, but fans will be disappointed to find one here.

Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Angel Eyes features a passable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack, certainly the highlight of this otherwise low-bar Blu-ray release. The track is shallow at reference listening levels, particularly concerning dialogue which plays below the expected level for natural stage engagement. Some might find a slight upward nudge necessary. Everything else is in fairly good working order, even if the sound in general comes across as rather flat and uninspired. The most obvious positive of note is that there's absolutely no shortage of well integrated and nicely defined surround sound usage. A drive by shooting in chapter two delivers a healthy sense of immersion. Gunfire is decently crisp and rips through the stage with impressive fluidity and fair depth, seeming to emanate from various locations that correspond to the quickly developing on-screen action. There are few other major audio engagements in the movie, but the track in general offers both width and depth and just enough low end usage to create a fairly well realized soundscape each and every time. City atmospherics are a highlight; the track does well to draw listeners onto street level or into various locations, including a Jazz club later in the film that holds a pivotal moment in the greater story reveal. Here, the stage offers a well balanced and seamlessly constructed listening environment where smooth Jazz notes and light background chatter and clatter set the scene. Dialogue, while a little shallow as noted above, does present from a steady front-center position.

Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Angel Eyes contains no supplemental content. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover. A curious note on authoring: hitting the "top menu" button on the remote simply restarts the disc from the studio logo, moving on to the rating screen and legalese. The disc then returns to the player's home screen (at least on the Oppo UDP-203). Starting it up again resets the process, minus the home screen trip. The pop-up menu does display a crude bar that allows for changes to audio and subtitle presentations during film playback.

Angel Eyes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Angel Eyes assembles an unconventional romance that is built from the wreckage of a horrific automobile crash. There are no major twists or turns, just a focus on a life being rebuilt one day, and date, at a time. It's a movie of broad narrative strokes but also subtle character beats that shape it into a passably engaging movie that foregoes thrills in favor of gentle romance. The movie is perfectly watchable, if not forgettable; it's too bad the same cannot be said of Sony's pressed MOD disc. The 1080p transfer is in terrible condition and the 5.1 lossless soundtrack is only competent. No extras are included. Skip it, especially at the release price point which is about 75% more than the value this disc provides.