Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

Blood Money Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 14, 2017

There’s a kind of funny video making the rounds on some social media platform which lampoons the horror film trope of a beautiful young woman running in terror from a marauding (and in this case, hockey masked) madman brandishing a katana, with the joke being that the girl trips — repeatedly. She runs for a moment, falls, though nothing is there as an obstacle, gets up, and then pretty much just falls again. In this at least marginally comical clip, the murderer starts verbally haranguing her for her stupidity and ultimately just kind of gives up, with the girl still lying prone on the grass, attempting to get into an upright position. Whatever clichés Blood Money traffics in, and believe me, it traffics in plenty, a helpless female isn’t one of them, and in fact the character of Lynn (Willa Fitzgerald) in this film is about as helpless as a snarling Rottweiler. Blood Money is yet another film with a criminal foraging out in the woods, only to be interrupted by unsuspecting campers, in a plot setup that is at least somewhat similar to any number of other outings like First Kill. In this case, the bad guy is one Miller (John Cusack), some kind of former business guru who has absconded with several million dollars in cold, hard cash. Evidently Miller has subscribed to the D.B. Cooper instruction manual of how to get away with his booty, since he jumps out of a plane, but kind of carelessly doesn’t keep himself tethered to his loot. In just one of several patently predictable plot arcs that Blood Money offers, three longtime friends with some dysfunctional interrelationships discover the bags of bucks, and the rest of the film plays out as both a cat and mouse game between the trio and Miller, as well as a war of wills between the trio itself, since all three have vastly different reactions to this sudden windfall.

Blood Money is one of those films that offers a familiar and even predictable general setup, but which then kind of interestingly pushes the envelope in various ways that may make the enterprise appeal, at least in passing, to some more curmudgeonly types (ahem). The screenplay by Jared Butler and Lars Norberg quickly sets up the dialectic between Lynn, Jeff (Jacob Artist), and Victor (Ellar Coltrane) in the opening moments. It’s obvious that Victor is carrying a torch for Lynn, and it’s later revealed they had a (very) brief fling toward the end of high school, but it’s also just as obvious that Lynn is interested in Jeff, and in fact doesn’t mind subtly tormenting Victor with little signs of affection toward Jeff. Already the emotional tenor of the film is a little unbalanced, and once the trio stumble upon backpacks literally stuffed full of cash, things go even further off the rails.

There are a number of largely unanswered questions about Miller, once he enters the fray. His “entrance” in the film is rather spectacular, as he jumps from an older style plane, which then promptly explodes in a fiery wreckage in the forest. The film kind of plays with audience expectations throughout its unfolding, and one of the at least slightly unpredictable elements in this approach is the fact that Miller, ostensibly the “bad guy” of the film, perhaps has more of a moral compass than Lynn at least. And in fact as the tale develops, Lynn becomes something of a villainess herself, increasingly intent on keeping money that Victor at least seems to realize is going to bring them nothing but trouble.

In some ways the cat and mouse aspect of the film is the least interesting, especially since Miller is (repeatedly) a pretty bad shot when it comes to taking out the trio (or at least some of the trio). There’s a patently underdeveloped subplot involving a local law enforcement official who gets involved in the situation, though the climax of this particular element is admittedly one of the film’s most riveting scenes, due largely to Cusack’s nicely handled reactions. The film gets much more interesting once the focus shifts to Lynn and Victor, with a struggle for superiority hinging on both moral and physical issues.

One of the best scenes in the film is the penultimate one, a showdown between Lynn and Miller which bristles with a sort of manic intensity that the rest of the film is never quite able to match. Fitzgerald is especially impressive in this sequence, almost delighting in subverting audience expectations of what a “damsel in distress” might be experiencing (Lynn is already on the ground in this scene, and so can’t trip). There are a couple of curious staging problems in this scene that director Lucky McKee might have handled better (I’m still unsure of how a gun fires unexpectedly, despite rewinding and watching this little snippet several times), but the impact (both literal and figurative) of Lynn’s devolution into a near feral state is one of Blood Money’s best deconstructions of traditional thriller tropes.

Blood Money Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Blood Money is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb doesn't have any real technical data on the shoot, but the sole supplement included on this Blu-ray shows the Arri Alexa being used, and for the most part, this has a strong, sleek and well detailed looking transfer. The Georgia locations look nicely precise, with no problems accruing around potential problem areas like dense foliage or even more barren looking branches. Close-ups, which are repeatedly utilized, offer some excellent glimpses of fine detail, including a couple fairly gruesome wounds as things turn more precarious. The biggest downside to this presentation is the last act or so, most of which takes place in a darkened abandoned mill, where it's actually fairly hard to see what's going on quite a bit of the time, perhaps by design.

Blood Money Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Blood Money's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers consistent immersion with ambient environmental sounds since so much of the film takes place outdoors, where breezes waft through the trees or the wash of the river the trio takes snakes through the surround channels. A couple of instances of gunfire provide little jolts of sonic energy as well. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Blood Money Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Blood Money Uncovered (1080p; 15:26) is a fairly straightforward EPK, but it does have some fun footage documenting how the river rafting scenes were achieved.

Blood Money Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are a number of at least relatively interesting elements in Blood Money, but the entire enterprise may be undone by the familiarity of the underlying plot dynamics. Cusack is fun if a little mannered as Miller, but the film belongs largely to Fitzgerald, who essays a character you'll love to hate. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.