Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Best Man Down Blu-ray Movie Review

The Death Mask in Your Wedding Album

Reviewed by Michael Reuben January 19, 2014

Classical drama was divided into comedies and tragedies, which were strictly differentiated. Tragedies ended in death, comedies in marriage. Writer-director Ted Koland's debut feature, Best Man Down, reverses the tradition and combines the forms by opening with both a marriage and a death, as a carefully planned "destination wedding" is clouded by the sudden demise of the best man. On balance the film is a comedy, but it's meant for viewers with a dark sense of humor and, at the very least, an irreverence toward convention.

Koland was inspired to write the script after hearing a tale, possibly apocryphal, about a wedding where a death occurred, although that it was a guest who died, rather than a member of the wedding party. What caught Koland's attention was how the dear departed would forever be defined by those circumstances:

Surely there's more to all of us than one moment, good or bad. People are so easily categorized as "the girl who ______" or "that guy who got caught ______." . . . Public labeling used to be limited to politicians and celebrities. But in a modern world of texting, Facebook and Twitter, we're all subject to instant and permanent branding. And we rarely get to choose what that moment is.

So Koland wrote a story in which the newlyweds end up discovering that they know much less about their best man than they thought. Revealing the unknown is the essence of storytelling, while discomfiture, which always accompanies the shock of sudden death, is the essence of comedy. The biggest challenge of Best Man Down was finding and maintaining the proper tone so that the humor arose naturally from the strangeness of the situation and not from any attempt to crack jokes. On that score, Koland was aided immeasurably by the wintry landscapes of his native Minnesota and by a supporting cast largely recruited from the thriving Minneapolis theater community that brought authenticity to the film along with their talent and experience.

The wedding is that of Scott (Justin Long) and Kristin (Jess Weisler, Teeth), and the destination is Phoenix, Arizona, a practical midpoint between their native Minneapolis and the honeymoon in Mexico where Kristin envisions lying under a palm tree wearing a caftan. (A running joke is that no one else knows what a caftan is.) Scott is a real estate broker who is perpetually shafted on commissions; Kristin is some sort of a teacher. They have stretched themselves financially for the wedding of their dreams, and the result is that they're making a bad start by lying to each other about money. Kristin's dress cost much more than she's telling Scott, and Scott doesn't want Kristin to know that he had to borrow the money for the honeymoon.

Scott's best friend, Lumpy (Tyler Labine, Reaper), is the typical inebriated jerk that, at most weddings, the best man would help subdue, except that Lumpy is the best man. Kristin barely tolerates him, and you can tell that, after the couple settles into married life, Lumpy won't be receiving many invitations to their home.

But all that becomes moot the next morning, when Lumpy is found dead on a cactus outside the luxury resort. His head is bleeding, but the cause of death is unclear, and an autopsy must be performed. Guilt-stricken, Scott undertakes to have the body shipped home and begins planning the funeral. The honeymoon in Mexico is off.

Attempting to notify Lumpy's acquaintances, Kristin and Scott find a listing in his phone for Ramsey Anderson (Addison Timlin), a name they don't recognize. The audience already knows that she's a fifteen-year-old girl in the small Minnesota town of Lutsen (director Koland's hometown). Sullen, withdrawn and seeking emancipation from her troubled mother, Jaime (Frances O'Connor), Ramsey is the mystery at the heart of Best Man Down. The newlyweds are appalled when they finally track her down, because they immediately assume that Lumpy's relationship with her was sexual, but they're wrong. (Now Jaime's live-in boyfriend, Winston (Evan Jones), would be a different story, given the slightest show of weakness on Ramsey's part.)

Addison Timlin will be familiar to fans of the Showtime series Californication from her turn in Season Four as the amoral starlet, Sasha Bingham, but her work in Best Man Down as a bright teenager barely concealing emotional trauma and determined to escape a bad home is on a whole different level. Timlin's Ramsey becomes the center around which the film's story revolves, as the mystery of her relationship with Lumpy is gradually revealed, both through flashbacks and in the present. Although Koland's plot devices are occasionally obvious, all of them serve the larger purpose of bringing Lumpy's friends together and giving them a moment to consider their lives—which, for Kristin and Scott, as they begin the sometimes treacherous path of marriage, is an excellent idea. (A very funny argument about "Mr. Dash" and "Mrs. Dash" at the dinner table reveals just how many issues they have to work out.)

Since Koland is making a comedy (more or less), his script manages to sort out far more problems by the film's conclusion than would happen in real life, often through the kind of magical solutions beloved by both screenwriters and audiences. But the setups are built into the story with the practiced skill that Koland acquired as a TV writer and producer before shifting into movies. The ending provides closure for the viewer, much as Lumpy's funeral does for his friends and family. Life goes on. Lumpy even gets the last word.

Best Man Down Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Shot with the Arri Alexa by cinematographer Seamus Tierney (Liberal Arts and Happythankyoumoreplease), Best Man Down once again demonstrates Tierney's skill at using digital capture to generate a smooth and film-like appearance that avoids any signs of digital harshness. The image on Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is consistently sharp and clear, with finely rendered detail in both of the film's contrasting locales, the warm Phoenix desert and the snowy Minnesota landscapes. (The wedding scenes themselves were shot at a hotel in St. Paul, since one hotel ballroom looks like any other.) The blacks of the Arizona night where Lumpy spends his final moments are appropriately rendered, as are the whites of the snow banks and frozen lakes where we see him in flashback. The full spectrum of colors in between is accurately reproduced and appropriately saturated to recreate the Christmas season decor in Minneapolis, which makes the relative dullness in Lutsen all the more striking.

As with the simultaneously released Bad Milo!, Magnolia has opted for a BD-25, but with limited extras, the 90-minute film has been compressed at an average bitrate of 22.01 Mbps. While nothing remarkable, this is adequate for a digitally acquired image.

Best Man Down Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The liveliest moments in Best Man Down's lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 track are the opening wedding sequence and a few scenes in flashback involving ice-fishing. The rest of the film is accompanied by a subtly atmospheric mix stressing dialogue and providing environmental ambiance with the surrounds. The score by Mateo Messina (Juno) strikes just the right balance between the serious and the comedic.

Best Man Down Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Outtakes (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:47): More amusing that most.



• Interviews (1080i; 1.78:1)
• Justin Long—"Scott" (3:18)
• Ted Koland—Director (5:15)



• AXS TV: A Look at Best Man Down (1080i; 2.35:1; 2:57): This short promo intercuts the trailer with excerpts from the two interviews listed above. Unlike most AXS TV promos, however, this one contains statements from Koland beyond what is included in the interview as released. It appears that he had more to say, which makes the absence of a commentary track especially unfortunate.



• Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:20). The trailer is reasonably successful at preserving most of the film's mysteries.



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for Mr. Nobody, The Last Days on Mars, Bad Milo! and How I Live Now, as well as a promo for AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check back for updates".

Best Man Down Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Best Man Down isn't for everyone. I certainly wouldn't recommend it to someone who had just suffered the loss of someone close to them. But death is a fact of life, and one of the themes of Best Man Down is how the sudden loss of someone you know can bring unexpected clarity to situations that seem insoluble and fresh perspective where it's most needed. The disc is somewhat light on extras, especially given Magnolia's usual generosity, but the technical presentation is excellent. Recommended.