5.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Four former high school classmates men make a risky investment that lands them in debt to a mob loan shark.
Starring: John Travolta, Jackie Earle Haley, Dan Stevens, Michael Pitt (II), Rob BrownCrime | 100% |
Thriller | 96% |
Drama | 22% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
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)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
According to both IMDb and numerous reviews, the script for Criminal Activities was written by
former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Lowell—and if that were true, it would be major news in the
world of literature. Lowell was noted for his erudition, his confessional verse and his
tempestuous personal life, but no one has ever associated him with the movies. If Lowell really
did have a secret life in which he scripted a film that has been compared (usually unfavorably) to
Pulp Fiction, entire chapters of American literary
history will have to be rewritten, not to
mention several biographies.
Then again, how could any writer, even one as talented as Lowell, have had the foresight to write
a Tarantino-esque screenplay years before the future auteur ever took the fateful job in a video store
where he began learning his craft? When Lowell died in 1977, there weren't any video stores;
there wasn't even home video; and the future creator of Reservoir Dogs and The Hateful
Eight
was an unknown fourteen-year-old living in Torrance, California. On chronology alone, the notion of
Lowell's writing Criminal Activities doesn't withstand scrutiny. (The same can be said of the
film's plot.)
One might shrug off the mysterious authorship of Criminal Activities, except that both its
director and its star keep stressing in interviews that they were attracted to the project by the
terrific script. One can't help but wonder what talented author lured John Travolta into anchoring
a non-studio picture and actor Jackie Earle Haley into making his directorial debut. (According to
Haley, he was introduced to Criminal Activities by his manager's husband, producer Wayne
Allen Rice; maybe Rice knows the script's provenance.) Haley, the former child star whose
career was revived by an Oscar nomination for Little
Children and has since appeared in such
films as Watchmen, Shutter Island, the remake of Robocop and Lincoln, has assembled a talented
cast who keep you watching even as you're shaking your head in disbelief. He also gives the film
a bizarrely off-kilter visual style that is presumably meant to complement (or maybe distract
from) the material's fundamental implausibility. Whether viewers will end up feeling satisfied,
cheated or just plain tired by the time the story has worked through its numerous twists is a
separate question.
RLJ/Image Entertainment acquired Criminal Activities at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. After a
brief theatrical run in November, the company is now issuing the film on Blu-ray, DVD and
VOD.
Criminal Activities was shot on Alexa by Seamus Tierney (Happythankyoumoreplease), who gives the contrived proceedings a rich, handsome surface. RLJ/Image's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, presumably sourced from digital files, offers a detailed image with a frequently saturated palette that complements the film's increasingly unlikely events. Black levels, contrast and densities are all good, and there is no apparent noise, interference or artifacting. RLJ/Image has mastered the 94-minute film on a BD-25 with an average bitrate of 23.98 Mbps, and the compression has been capably performed.
Criminal Activities's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, is more about manipulation than the reproduction of environments. Indeed, the film's musical score by Keefus Ciancia (As Above, So Below) often substitutes for naturalistic sound, using electronic beats and tones to convey a mood. The score has been effectively distributed through the surround array, so that it often seems to float above the action, like an unidentified observer (or maybe someone pulling the strings). The film's dialogue is well-mixed and properly reproduced and, aside from the score, it's the soundtrack's main focus.
It's beyond ironic that the script of Criminal Activities has been attributed to Robert Lowell,
whose erudite existence as a writer and teacher at such rarefied institutions as Harvard and Yale
couldn't be further removed from the film's illicit environs. Lowell wouldn't have sat through
this film, let alone written it. Whether you want to sit through it is a personal decision, but I
recommend doing so with a rental.
2008
2018
The Dirty Harry Collection
1973
2013
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1990
Unrated
2012
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2013
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2010
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1991
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Luftslottet som sprängdes
2009
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