6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Two police officer brothers who struggle to maintain their sense of morality while investigating a murder. With their father Lenny also an officer of the law in his heyday, policing seems to run in the veins of Joe and Chrissie Fairburn. However, when a young girl is discovered murdered - the most horrific crime to afflict the community in recent memory - the brothers face a stern test of their mettle.
Starring: Paul Bettany, Mark Strong, Brian Cox, Stephen Graham, Zoë TapperThriller | 100% |
Crime | 74% |
Drama | 18% |
Foreign | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
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'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.
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 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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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