Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Blue Collar Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov December 15, 2019

Paul Schrader's "Blue Collar" (1978) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the disc include an original trailer for the film and archival audio commentary by Paul Schrader and critic Maitland McDonagh. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Sit down, keep quiet, we know what's good for ya.

Paul Schrader’s directorial debut functions like a medical report. It carefully identifies all the key factors that have caused the cancer that would eventually destroy the Motor City -- the big unions and their phony leaders, the rampant corruption, and the nasty identity politics promoted by local labor and political leaders. At the end it even sums up its findings precisely like medical reports do.

The main characters are three good friends who work together in one of the city’s auto plants. The gig is tough -- they are frequently pushed hard by their supervisors in an environment that is far from perfect -- but it is the only one in the area that they could do to put food on the table, so they try to stay out of trouble and just do what they are told. All three are also members of the union because everyone else in the plant is.

A series of unexpected events, however, force the three out of their bubble and then test the strength of their friendship. The first occurs shortly after Zeke (Richard Pryor) clashes with one of his supervisors who has repeatedly lied to him that his locker will get fixed. While trying hard to contain his anger, Zeke is visited by an IRS agent who informs him that the government knows that he has cheated on his tax returns and serves him a bill for a little over two grand. Around the same time Jerry (Harvey Keitel) is also told by his wife that their daughter needs a set of brand new braces, which they can’t afford. Feeling under pressure to help their families, Zeke and Jerry decide to bet everything on a risky plan conceived by Smokey (Yaphet Kotto), which requires that they break into the local union office, crack its safe, and then walk away with a supposedly guaranteed large sum of money. But the plan does not work as intended and the friends end up pocketing only a couple of hundred bucks as well as a worn out ledger with some seemingly unimportant descriptions of routine financial transactions. A few days later, however, Zeke realizes that the transactions actually link the union bosses with all sorts of shady players across the country, and when their lap dogs begin looking for it he and his pals find themselves in some serious trouble.

The crime element is just a pretext to cut open the belly of a disgustingly corrupt system that demolished the Rust Belt states and then mutated in other parts of the country. Without flinching, the film makes it painfully obvious that even during the '70s a lot of people knew exactly how the unions and their lackeys operated but kept quiet because their livelihood depended on them.

What is astonishing, however, is that the film also has the courage to spell out the clear goal of identity politics, which was, and still is, to divide and ultimately transform into enemies ordinary people like Zeke, Jerry, and Smokey. It also shows how the ideologues behind it are carefully shielded by hypocrites and real crooks when someone threatens to expose them and their game.

The acting is excellent. There is an abundance of pure anger that oozes from it that allows the message of the film to resonate the right way. As it is the case with so many good American films from the ‘70s, political correctness is also completely wiped out from the narrative. In the current environment, this is undoubtedly Schrader’s most relevant film.

Blue Collar Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Blue Collar arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release is sourced from the same older remaster that Universal supplied to Indicator/Powerhouse Films in 2018 for this Region-B release of Blue Collar. I don't know when it was prepared, but it does not have the typical flaws that the studio's much older masters from the DVD era exhibit. (If you are familiar with Universal's output then you should know what I refer to -- boosted sharpness and contrast, edge-enhancement, problematic depth and density, etc.). However, this remaster still has a fair share of limitations. For example, plenty of the darker/indoor footage does not have optimal shadow definition and in some areas the grain becomes rather noisy (screencapture #14 demonstrates the limitation very well). Quite predictably, depth also struggles there. The good news is that the overall density levels of the remaster are still quite nice, with the well-lit footage usually conveying best results. Also, the lack of digital enhancements ensures that the film's basic organic qualities are retained. Obviously, the native resolution limitations remain, but this is an entirely different issue. The color scheme is stable and quite nice. However, there is room for improvement, especially during the darker areas that I mentioned above. Image stability is very good. There are no distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, warped or torn frames to report. However, a few white specks pop up. My score is 4.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Blue Collar Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional Enlgish SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I am unsure if a new remaster with remixed audio can deliver any improvements in the audio department. There are a few areas -- mostly during the bar footage and some of the larger mass sequences -- with some dynamic unevenness, but it is quite easy to tell that this is native quality of the original soundtrack. Clarity, depth, and overall stability are excellent.

Blue Collar Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original U.S. trailer for Blue Collar. In English, not subtitled. (3 min, 480/60i).

• Commentary - this archival audio commentary features Paul Schrader and critic Maitland McDonagh and previously appeared on Starz/Anchor Bay's North American DVD release of the film.

• Additional Trailers - additional trailers for the following titles from Kino Lorber's catalog:
  
  1. Report to the Commissioner
  2. Across 110th Street
  3. The Border
  4. City of Industry

Blue Collar Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Currently, Blue Collar is perhaps the most relevant political film to come out of the '70s because it correctly identifies all of the key factors that more than four decades ago initiated the destruction of large parts of America's Heartland. However, what is truly remarkable about this film is that, perhaps somewhat unintentionally, it also points a finger at the ideological hypocrites that willingly directed the destruction while pretending to defend the interests of those that suffered the most. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.