Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

"Behold, a pale horse. And its rider's name was Death, and Hell followed with him..."

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown August 2, 2013

There's always a moment. Sometimes it comes early, sometimes late. Sometimes it's a surprise, sometimes long-coming. But there's always a moment; a point where a television show either grabs hold or losses you. My Banshee moment came early -- at the end of Episode Two to be exact -- and came as quite a surprise. Before that, Cinemax's second foray into original programming was intriguing enough I suppose, with a criminally colorful cast of killers and do-gooders. But it was so saturated in tough-guy testosterone and antihero machismo that I couldn't decide if it was deliciously pulpy or nauseatingly cheesy. And while the series' rapidfire action, gratuitous violence and rampant sex hung on for dear life, often to its detriment, matters improved dramatically until, by season's end, I was hooked. Not enough to place it alongside the current crop of infectious greats: the Breaking Bads, the Game of Thrones, the House of Cards or The Walking Deads. But enough to ensure Banshee's second season earns a spot in my DVR.

There's a new Sheriff in town...

Sheriff Lucas Hood (Antony Starr) is new to the small town of Banshee, Pennsylvania, and he has a whopper of a secret: he isn't Lucas Hood. The real Sheriff died in a bar altercation on the outskirts of town, before being sworn in and, conveniently, before anyone had the chance to meet him face to face. (The only person who could identify him died of terminal cancer two weeks earlier.) Hood is actually a recently released convict and former master thief who comes to Banshee after fifteen years in prison to track down his old partner and lover, Ana (Ivana Milicevic). But Ana isn't herself anymore either. She's a happily married real estate agent and mother of two named Carrie Hopewell, and that's just one of many secrets she's kept from her husband Gordon (Rus Blackwell), the town's district attorney. Needless to say, she isn't thrilled when her incarcerated boy-toy comes calling.

Rekindling old passions is the least of Hood's worries, though. His old boss, Ukranian gangster Mr. Rabbit (Ben Cross), is still searching for Carrie and the $10 million in diamonds in her possession, and will stop at nothing to kill Hood; Carrie's daughter Deva (Ryann Shane) is more than fifteen years old (do the math); and the new Sheriff has been tasked with ensnaring local crime lord Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), a shunned Amish exile turned successful businessman who runs Banshee and its criminal industries with an iron fist. Not that Hood is without a few allies. There's transgender hacker Job (Hoon Lee), a longtime accomplice; Banshee's mayor Dan Kendall (Daniel Ross Owens), an idealist itching to bring Proctor down; deputies Brock Lotus (Matt Servitto), Siobhan Kelly (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and Emmett Yawners (Demetrius Grosse); and fast friend, bartender and retired boxer Sugar Bates (Frankie Faison), the only local aside from Carrie who knows the Sheriff is an impostor.

Banshee's first ten episodes are by no means a flawless smalltown enterprise, and a stale Twin Peaks aftertaste lingers long after it becomes clear the series' sights are set on Breaking Bad, not David Lynch. The ice-cold criminal kingpins, redneck thugs, and gay albino hitmen that litter the landscape are mostly a tease for a more original Original Series that never really materializes. The Proctor/Amish connection is certainly interesting, but the ensuing micro-dramas are more straight-laced than strange, and whatever bizarro quirks the other villains boast is typically skin deep. The action and ultraviolence is pure fists-n-firearms too, bloody and over the top as it all tends to be. (Hood offs a baddie with a bottle of A1 within minutes of the pilot's opening credits... by jamming, then punching it down his throat. And it only gets more grisly and gory from there.) Fortunately, things quickly settle into an addicting groove, with increasingly satisfying character bits and plenty of juicy, ever at-odds relationships. Season One spends the better part of its early episodes ferreting out a tone and even more time establishing its style. But most of the episodes build with confidence, and only one falls utterly flat: "The Kindred," with its corny, poorly cast, haphazardly written biker gang.

Hood's none too subtle dance with the devil -- or devils, as it were -- isn't a clever series of psychological traps or a complex manhunt. It's a game of blunt-force wits; on one side Thomsen's thousand-yard chill, on the other Starr's uncrackable, clenched jaw resolve. The real dance is Hood's slow waltz with Ana, and the one that proves the most unpredictable. Yes, the series' action requires full and total suspension of disbelief. (Hood beats a rapist within an inch of his life in front of a casino crowd with cell phone cameras, and only hears "that's enough!" after biting an MMA fighter's ear off, literally tearing the man's hand to pieces, breaking his left arm and demonstrating a complete willingness to commit murder rather than arrest a perp.) And yes, fistfights and shootouts take precedence over logic or any semblance of realism. But throw the switch on your brain when the fighting starts and flip it back on when the latest dust-up ends, and you'll soon find the action to be a nice primer for the conflicts that follow. Starr, Thomsen, Milicevic, Faison, Lee, Servitto, Dunn and Grosse (among others, with only a few exceptions) are fine actors as well, able to bypass Banshee's borderline explicit sex and wanton violence and make something more of what might otherwise be a hard-R mess.

By the end of the season finale there's little doubt the series will survive and thrive well into a third season, and even less doubt the next ten episodes will come with a higher body count. (Season One clocks in at 42.) Where it goes from there is anyone's guess and every fan's pleasure.

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Banshee may be a Cinemax Original Series, but its 1080p/AVC-encoded Season One video presentation comes by way of parent company HBO, whose reputation for top tier Blu-ray releases precedes it. The series' palette boasts a consistency in its stylistic inconsistencies, all of which is in keeping with the showrunners' intentions. Contrast is also a bit slippery, although hardly a source of complaints, while black levels are suitably dark, whites are nice and crisp, and primaries are vibrant, particularly insofar as reds are concerned. Detail is excellent too, with refined edges, naturally resolved textures and revealing (albeit muted) delineation. Moreover, artifacting, banding, aliasing and ringing are nowhere to be found, while minimal noise and inherent crush are the only minor issues to attend to.

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Cinemax and HBO's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track doesn't play games. LFE output is weighty and assertive, rear speaker activity is engaging, and dynamics are remarkable. Directionality is accurate and involving, pans are smooth and impeccably transparent, and the soundfield is as immersive and enveloping as any action-heavy television series could hope for. Dialogue is intelligible and smartly prioritized too, and when the series' slick-rock soundtrack kicks in, everything soars to more absorbing heights.

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries: Six worthwhile commentaries kick things off right. Alas, most of the remaining supplemental package -- particularly the all too limited featurettes -- are rather underwhelming. Commentaries include the series "Pilot" with creator/executive producer Jonathan Tropper, director/executive producer Greg Yaitanes and actor Antony Starr (Lucas Hood); "Meet the New Boss" with post-production producer Allen Marshall Palmer and editor Mike O'Halloran; "The Kindred" with director SJ Clarkson and actors Ivana Milicevic (Carrie), Lili Simmons (Rebecca), Trieste Kelly Dunn (Siobhan) and Matt Servitto (Brock); "Wicks" with director OC Madsen and casting director Alexa Fogel; "Behold a Pale Rider" with creator/executive producer David Shickler and director Dean White; and "We Shall Live Forever" with Tropper, Yaitanes and stunt coordinator Marcus Young.
• Inside the Title Sequence (HD): Each episode is accompanied by an interactive feature that allows fans to explore clues and elements within its title sequence. Unfortunately, "interactive" amounts to inching through the titles, clicking on icons that appear, and reading boxes of pop-up text.
• Banshee Origins (HD, 34 minutes): A surprisingly lengthy collection of thirteen live-action prequel videos detailing Banshee and its characters pasts, from "15 Years Ago" to "2 Weeks Ago" to "Today."
• Comic Book (HD): "Killing a man shouldn't be so easy. But after enough men, it becomes so. And I have no patience for petty thieves." Piece together the full story of Lucas Hood.
• Town of Secrets (HD, 4 minutes): A brief Cinemax promo introducing the town of Banshee.
• NYC Bus Crash (HD, 3 minutes): Another quick promo, this one focused on a scene in the first episode.
• Zooming In: Episodes 7 & 8 (HD, 3 minutes): Two tragically truncated making-of-the-episode shorts.
• Reveal the Code (HD, 2 minutes): Unraveling the numeric code that opens each episode.
• Deleted Scenes (HD, 9 minutes): Four scenes from "Wicks," "Always the Cowboy" and "A Mixture of Madness."
• Season 2 Teaser Trailer (HD, 1 minutes)

Banshee: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Don't let Banshee's rough and tough exterior fool you. At least not too much. There's enough going on beneath all the gratuitous sex and violence to warrant the attention of action-starved TV junkies. Flawed as its first season can be, firm groundwork has been laid for its upcoming sophomore season. Here's hoping the series' showrunners are able to refine their established formula further and deliver an even more satisfying ten episodes in 2014. Cinemax and HBO's Blu-ray release is even better, with a terrific AV presentation and a solid selection of extras. And at such a tempting pricepoint, the risk involved in a blind buy is that much more manageable.