Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Blood Blu-ray Movie Review

Transfusion Needed

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 23, 2013

Blood is the 92-minute feature version of writer Bill Gallagher's 2004 British TV series, Conviction, which explored the same story over a six-hour span with additional subplots. The longer running time is sorely missed in director Nick Murphy's (The Awakening) film, which races through character arcs that would play more effectively if the complex brew of emotions driving the plot were allowed more time to percolate. In the story as we now find it, two brothers who have apparently managed to build respectable lives as cops in a small English coastal town destroy themselves over a single case, but we're supposed to understand that the seeds of their destruction were planted in childhood. Their doom is "in their blood", as it were.

Still, it's hard to accept that the brothers ever managed to reach the point where we find them, given how quickly they're reduced to emotional wrecks by just one murder (admittedly, a grim and disturbing one). Gallagher's script lays out all the elements that conspire to make the brothers unravel, and Murphy's use of his home town of Wirral as a backdrop provides a thick layer of damp, noirish atmosphere that makes Blood a compelling watch. When it's over, though, the characters don't leave a lasting impact, despite the exertions of a talented cast. There just isn't enough time to make the kind of impression that lets a viewer feel the tragedy of self-inflicted wounds.

The brother cops are Joe and Chrissie Fairburn (Paul Bettany and Stephen Graham), sons of a retired policeman, Lenny (Brian Cox), who is fighting a losing battle with Alzheimer's and goes in and out of awareness of his present surroundings. It's uncertain whether Lenny's tales of the old days when he and his fellow officers kept the peace by beating confessions out of suspects are tall tales or genuine recollections, but there's a bullying element to Lenny's interactions with his sons that one suspects did not just begin with his dementia.

Joe and Chrissie are called to the scene of a drained swimming pool (or fountain), where the bloody body of a local teenage girl has been found with multiple stab wounds. Joe takes this particularly badly, because he knew the victim, who is the same age as his own daughter, Miriam (Naomi Battrick). As he and his wife, Lily (Natasha Little), approach their twentieth wedding anniversary, Joe is determined that this case will not go unsolved. He keeps a picture on his desk of a victim from his father's era, whose killer was never caught, as a reminder of a policeman's obligation.

A likely suspect appears in the person of Jason Buleigh (Ben Crompton), a convicted sex offender who has supposedly found religion. But when Buleigh is questioned, his behavior is that of a guilty man, and his room at his mother's (Sandra Voe) home has far too many pictures of young girls, including the victim, for anyone to believe that Buleigh has genuinely reformed. Still, in the absence of physical evidence or eyewitness accounts, the police are forced to release Buleigh. Meanwhile, the brothers' calmer and more methodical colleague, Robert Seymour (Mark Strong), considers alternative routes for developing evidence.

At first glance, Chrissie might appear to be the less mature and stable of the two brothers, having never settled into family life despite a long-standing relationship with a pretty restaurant cook named Jemma (Zoë Tapper). But it's Joe who turns out to the more impulsive of the two, and he's also the older brother, whom Chrissie always follows. As Joe drinks too much at his anniversary party, he listens to his father's ramblings about how cops should behave, and he drags Chrissie into the night on a course that leads them into a dark world of vigilantism that changes both their lives.

For much of Blood, Joe and Chrissie live the dual existence of many a film noir investigator, whether private or official. On the surface, they attempt to conduct a legitimate inquiry into a crime, but in reality they are desperately trying to conceal evidence that would reveal how they themselves have crossed the boundaries of the law. Many elements obstruct them, not the least of which is their friend and colleague Robert Seymour, whose deliberate, dispassionate approach to police work is the very opposite of old Lenny Fairburn's—and Seymour produces some startling results. Eventually, even the aging Lenny himself becomes a problem for his sons. He is no more lucid than he was before, but his moments of clarity begin to organize themselves around events that his sons would prefer he forget. And Lenny's head tends to clear at the most inopportune moments.

The strain of leading a dual life takes its toll on both brothers, wrecking Joe's home life, destroying Chrissie's relationship with Jenna, eventually corrupting the bond between the brothers. But Blood's tragedy would strike with more impact if Gallagher's script didn't immediately plunge us into the murder case that leads the brothers to hell, so that we had a chance to know them in better times and, perhaps, gain some understanding of their lack of patience with basic investigative techniques. Then Joe's explosion into a raving maniac might have more time to build and the transformation in him that alienates his family would register more painfully. Bettany and Graham are superb actors, and they're always watchable, but their work is shortchanged by a script that turns them into plot functions rather than characters with credible emotional lives.

Blood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blood was shot by George Richmond, part of the family of cameramen of whom the father is Anthony B. Richmond (Legally Blonde). Blood's visual style represents a peculiarly contemporary phenomenon, in that it was shot on film but then processed on a digital intermediate to look like digital video to such an extent that I was surprised to see the Kodak credit at the end. The Blu-ray has presumably been sourced from digital files, because it looks very much like Blu-rays made from films acquired with digital cameras like the Red or the Arri Alexa: sharp, detailed, noiseless and virtually without detectable film grain (you can find some if you study a still frame closely, but in motion it's barely visible). One has to wonder why the filmmakers didn't just switch to digital capture.

The film's color palette is consistently chilly and blue, which reflects both the seaside locale and the prevailing emotional temperature. Even the color red, whether of blood or of some ordinary object, has a faded and cold appearance. The blacks are solid and deep, which is essential in both night scenes and interiors where groups of men congregate but frequently fail to communicate.

The average bitrate of 22.98 Mbps is acceptable for a film without major action scenes or complex detail. Artifacts were not an issue.

Blood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blood's moody 5.1 sound mix is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA. Anything close to the water's edge has the sound of the ocean all around. Rain storms, indeed all elements relating to water, always make their presence felt. The hum of activity in the large main hall of police headquarters is placed subtly in the surrounds, and there is a lengthy sequence in a derelict movie theater that makes good use of the surround array for creaks, rustlings and other noises that prompt one to shine a flashlight to see what might be there in the dark.

Dialogue is poorly prioritized in this mix. The accents are not thick, but many of the lines are tossed off, half-swallowed or buried amidst other sounds, and Gallagher's script is the kind of condensed tale where missing a line can be fatal. An entire plot development may hinge a single key exchange. It's been a long time since I have had to rewind and turn on the subtitles as often as I did with Blood.

Daniel Pemberton, who also scored The Awakening for director Murphy, has supplied an appropriately dark score for Blood.

Blood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Blu-ray has no extras. At startup, the disc plays trailers for The Numbers Station, The Double and Day of the Falcon, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Blood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blood has good performances, it literally drips with atmosphere, and it's been capably presented on Blu-ray. But it's not a very satisfying film, and I would recommend any number of British TV detective series instead, e.g., George Gently, which is set in a different era, but also takes place in a seaside environment and explores territory just as dark. Rent if curious.