Bushwick Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Bushwick Blu-ray Movie Review

War Comes to Brooklyn

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 26, 2017

In a memorable exchange in Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart's Rick is asked by a Nazi officer whether he could imagine German troops in New York, to which the maverick expatriate replies: "Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade." The heavily armed force that ventures into a Brooklyn neighborhood in Bushwick should have heeded Bogart's advice. In the second feature film from directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion (Cooties), an army storms neighborhood streets where they expect minimal opposition, only to find the opposite. As Brooklyn becomes Beirut (or Sarajevo or Basra), the directors deploy an impressive combination of practical and digital effects to transform a familiar American landscape into a war zone.

The inventive trick of Bushwick's script, written by Murnion and Nick Damici (the Stake Land films), is to depict an urban invasion almost entirely from the point of view of a single citizen, and one who is distinctly unsuited for combat. Lucy (Brittany Snow, Pitch Perfect) is returning home for a visit from grad school with her new boyfriend, Jose (Arturo Castro), unaware of the black-clad troops quietly arriving by helicopter. The opening credits of Bushwick are set against ominous aerial views of the city from one such craft, but then the camera picks up Lucy as she and Jose navigate a curiously empty subway station. From there on, the film sticks with Lucy's perspective, only briefly letting her out of sight, as the camera captures the first-person experience of her horrified discovery that the old neighborhood has become a battleground where bullets fly, vehicles burn and rocket launchers casually incinerate the citizenry. Bushwick plays out in real time, and the illusion is effective, even though the alert viewer will easily spot the edits that stitch multiple takes into what is supposed to be a single unbroken shot.

Lucy is shortly joined by a local resident who gives his name as "Stupe" and identifies himself as a janitor, although it is immediately apparent that he is someone with military training. Stupe is played by former WWE champion Dave Bautista, adding to an impressive list of credits that already includes Spectre, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and Vol. 2 and Blade Runner 2049. Stupe is obviously a combat professional, but he's also just as obviously a man whose daily life is defined by emotional pain, and Bautista is able to show the inner turmoil of this man of action, as Stupe and Lucy battle their way through city streets beset by opposing forces of invaders, defenders and criminals taking advantage of the chaos. There's little time for confessionals or heart-to-hearts in this struggle to survive, but Bushwick builds in enough quiet moments to allow Stupe's tragic history to be gradually revealed. (Co-writer Damici, whose Stakelander character was a similarly mournful warrior, no doubt initially conceived the role for himself.)

Bushwick confronts this unlikely pair with a variety of logistical challenges, and they encounter a colorful array of locals struggling to comprehend and cope with this sudden eruption of urban warfare. I particularly enjoyed the squadron of rifle-toting Hasidic Jews, who are just one of many elements in the citizenry’s spontaneous resistance. At the other end of the spectrum is Belinda (Angelic Zambrana), Lucy's drug-addled sister by adoption, who passed out before the invasion and awakens to a new reality her mind refuses to accept. (She thinks all the noise is neighbors playing video games, which neatly sums up the pop culture aesthetic of war-as-entertainment against which Bushwick is rebelling.) As word arrives of a nearby rescue facility established by the U.S. military, Lucy and Stupe become part of a growing contingent attempting to reach some form of sanctuary. Meanwhile, enemy helicopters continue to criss-cross the skies overhead. When Bushwick returns at the end to an aerial overview, the landscape has been dramatically altered.

The identity of the invading force and their reason for occupying this particular territory are revealed in Bushwick's second half, and Murnion explains what inspired the idea in the Blu-ray extras. In some respects, the notion has become outdated since Bushwick began filming in 2015, but in others it has grown even more relevant. Then again, does it really make any difference to the people being driven from their homes why these hostile forces have arrived and why they've been given shoot-to-kill orders against non-military targets? By sticking with Lucy's point of view, Milott and Murnion emphasize how politics and ideology quickly become irrelevant when survival is at stake. All that matters is evading the next volley of weapons fire. In a movie landscape where urban disaster is now routinely treated as spectacle, Bushwick restores realistic proportions to the devastation that real-life warfare inflicts on ordinary people.

Bushwick Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Directors Milott and Murnion reunited with their Cooties cinematographer, Lyle Vincent, who shot Bushwick digitally (on the Arri Alexa Mini, according to IMDb). The extras show the minimalist Steadicam-style rig worn by the camera operator who followed Lucy on her perilous odyssey, producing a stable image free from any form of "shaky cam". RLJ Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray displays all the usual virtues of digital capture, with a sharply detailed image free of noise or distortion. Bushwick's palette reflects the grittiness of its subject matter, with a minor but not exaggerated desaturation that eliminates bright colors, except for the reds of blood and the jacket that Lucy wears for the first half of the film (which pops her slightly out of the frame). Fine detail is strong even in darkened interiors. RLJ has mastered Bushwick with an average bitrate of just under 23.00 Mbps.

Bushwick Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bushwick arrives with an aggressively immersive 5.1 soundtrack encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. The mix follows the film's "first person shooter" aesthetic, placing effects in the surround array according to Lucy's point of view. The rear speakers are alive with off-camera weapons fire, yelling voices and other sounds of combat. Helicopter engines whir back and forth (and sometimes front and back). Dynamic range is broad with solid bass extension. The dialogue has been carefully mixed so that it's forced to compete with the surrounding mayhem but is never buried to the point where it becomes unintelligible. The score by Aesop Rock (his first for a film) is sparsely used, but its electronic rhythms recall John Carpenter's horror movie compositions.

Bushwick Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Bushwick cries out for a commentary and/or in-depth documentary exploring how the filmmakers transformed a Brooklyn neighborhood into a battlefield and the elaborate choreography of the interplay between the actors and the camera operator. Unfortunately, all that RLJ has provided is a short EPK and a handful of stills.

• The Making of Bushwick (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:42).



• Photo Gallery (1080p).



• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery (1080p).



• Poster Gallery (1080p).



• Trailers: The film's trailer is not included, although it can be found on other RLJ Blu-ray titles (e.g., Pilgrimage). At startup, the disc plays trailers for Kickboxer: Vengeance, Bone Tomahawk and Dog Eat Dog.

Bushwick Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's not hard to imagine what might have happened to Bushwick if the project had been developed at a major studio. Everything would have been pushed to be bigger and "cooler". The invaders would have arrived with tanks and artillery, entire buildings would have been leveled and CGI would have ruled the day. Fortunately, Milott and Murnion were left to pursue their original idea to its logical conclusion, and the result is far more affecting than the mind-numbing orgies of destruction that dominate today's Hollywood release calendar. When Lucy passes a Mister Softee truck ablaze and abandoned on the city streets, the sight is haunting because its devastation of the mundane feels all too real. Highly recommended.