Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 15, 2024

Maybe what co-writer and director Jordon Prince-Wright needed was a butterfly, a la the memorable ending of the classic World War I film All Quiet on the Western Front. After all, even a CGI insect probably wouldn't have cost that much, and even though Prince-Wright seems to state one action sequence in the film cost "millions" (at least if I'm understanding him correctly) and included hundreds of extras (that part was clear), Before Dawn just never quite achieves the epic scope it seems to be aiming for, something that seems at least in passing due to budget constraints. Probably even more debilitating than that, though, is the fact that Before Dawn simply retreads tropes and ideas from any number of other war movies, and World War I movies in particular, this despite the somewhat "exotic" emphasis on the so-called Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), though of course even that aspect will at least remind some tangentially of a much better effort, Peter Weir's Gallipoli.

Some of the most moving content on this disc actually comes courtesy of some very short interviews with some of the cast and crew where several young men pay homage to their grandfathers who served in World War I, and in fact the film's end credits offer a "For Granddad" from Prince-Wright himself. But as much as the film relies on the tried and true "based on true events" imprimatur, it's so almost willfully generic at times that it lacks the kind of specificity that might have upped the emotional content. Jim Collins (Levi Miller) is a young Australian lad working on his family's sheep farm (the crew evidently shipped in hundreds of sheep "extras" for those sequences), who is needed desperately at home, but who can't resist the "siren call" of joining his "mates" on the battlefield. Suffice it to say, Jim's dreams of glory collide rather spectacularly with the gritty, hopeless existence he endures once he makes it to the front.

Before Dawn visits all of the expected material involving young men becoming disillusioned by the horrors of war, the agony of watching comrades die (sometimes gruesomely), and the aching homesickness that pervades their lives. Unfortunately, all of that material receives only lukewarm writing, and the upshot (no battle pun intended) is that viewers may ultimately surrender to the same kind of frustrated boredom that some of the soldiers in the film experience in between moments of terror.

Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Before Dawn is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Despite several passing glimpses of whatever digital camera was utilized in some of the making of material on this disc, I couldn't quite catch a brand or model, and the IMDb has only completely peculiar technical "information" as this review is being written (e.g., 420:1(Seasons 1-8 & some scenes in "Back to the Pilot under Aspect Ratio on the Technical Specifications page). One way or the other, this is a generally great looking transfer, with one major exception: a lot of this film takes place at night, and shadow detail can be pretty iffy quite a bit of the time, as can perhaps be gleaned in some of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. The more fulsomely lit sequences offer typically excellent detail levels, though the entire film has been graded kind of unusually at times, with the "family farm" scenes having a somewhat overly bright, slightly desaturated, appearance and quite a bit of the war material having a rather strange greenish undertone. My score is 4.25.

Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Before Dawn features a decently immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one aided by the fact that virtually the entire film takes place outside. That allows for regular placement of ambient environmental effects in the side and rear channels, though those jonesin' for "big battle scenes" with a whirlwind of surround activity and forceful LFE had best keep looking. A suitably elegiac score by Sean Tinnion is also nicely spacious sounding. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English and French subtitles are available.

Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes offer some very short EPKs with interviews, behind the scenes footage and snippets from the film that seem to have been used to market the film somewhere:

  Anzac (HD; 1:41)

  
  

  Authenticity (HD; 00:55)

  
  

  The Director (HD; 1:01)

  
  

  In Production (HD; 1:29)

  
  

  The Set (HD; 00:55)

  
  

  The Story (HD; 00:53)

• Trailer (HD; 2:07)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically, so that clicking on Anzac under the Behind the Scenes submenu is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Packaging features a slipcover.

Before Dawn Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Prince-Wright looks very young in the making of supplements on this disc, and his IMDb biography kind of gobsmackingly refers to him being "only 19" (though my hunch is the bio was written at least a couple of years ago), but one way or the other he seems well on his way to a solid career as a so-called multi-hyphenate (the film even bears the imprimatur of his own production company). That said, Before Dawn for all its noble intentions simply doesn't bring anything new to the "World War I film" game. Stick with Gallipoli instead if you want an Aussie focused drama unfolding in that same general context. Technical merits are generally solid and the minimal supplements interesting (and even moving at times), for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.