Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman October 14, 2023

Mill Creek has released the 1994 film 'Drop Squad,' directed by David C. Johnson, to Blu-ray. This is the film's Blu-ray debut. Picture quality is poor, audio is acceptable, and supplements are nonexistent. At time of writing, this disc is exclusive to Mill Creek's 'Double Danger' Blu-ray double feature which also shares a disc with 'Waist Deep.'

Official synopsis: From executive producer Spike Lee comes a controversial film that taps into one of the most explosive issues of our time. With a powerful cast including Eriq LaSalle ('ER'), Ving Rhames ('Out of Sight'), and Vondie Curtis-Hall, 'Drop Squad' is a blistering look at a different form of social unrest—that of African-Americans "selling out" their race for personal gain. The DROP (Deprogramming and Restoration of Pride) Squad is an outlaw organization that abducts and "deprograms" African-Americans who exploit and/or deny their cultural heritage. But as the group's methods become increasingly violent, its charismatic leader (Curtis-Hall) must wrestle with a disturbing question: Has his organization lost its way as surely as the brothers and sisters they seek to reform?

Race – racial issues of societal place, equality, and the like – has long dominated the American social and political landscapes. In Drop Squad, racial uniformity is the key question: should everyone of a particular skin color do, behave, mingle with, and prosper only amongst their own kind? The “Drop Squad” “re-programs” or maybe better said “de-programs” black people who have, per the Drop Squad’s guidelines, sold themselves out to the white culture and the white way of doing things for personal gain, be that social gain, financial gain, or some other kind of gain. The question, then, is this: is the Drop Squad justified in its actions? Is it proper to kidnap and torture those who do not behave a certain kind of way? Are the victims “sell-outs” to their race, or are they just being human?

With the plot dynamics in view, then, it is easy to see why this was a controversial film. Are people to fit a certain mold based on the color of their skin? If yes, who decides what that mold should be? That is a question the film attempts to address. Further, the film explores a view of how white-dominated corporate America preys on the black community, which is challenged in one of the film’s best sequences. As the film builds and progresses, as its story is established and its characters get to work, it feels that a lot of the elements are over the top and the film deals and dabbles in caricature on all sides of the equation, but certainly one can see both the appeal and the aversion at the same time in the material. The actors are solid enough but the story certainly leaves some question as to not just its effectiveness, but its morality. The film addresses the latter to some degree, but ultimately it will be up to the viewer to determine whether the film, one, succeeds in its mission and, two, how justifiable and moral the characters’ actions are.

Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The film's opening titles do not portend good things to come. The lettering is wobbly and the edges are jagged and broken. The image proper appears clearly, and heavily, processed and a product of a DVD era mastering. Do things improve once the opening title sequence comes to an end? Sadly, the answer is "not really." That processed, prepared-for-DVD look continues, with grain replaced by a swirling morass of artificial noise. Print wear is evident from start to finish, with pops and splotches and speckles commonplace. Definition is poor. While the image certainly looks "sharper" than DVD because of the resolution, it's still very poor, offering nothing in terms of natural razor sharpness. What is here looks somewhat smoothed over and flat. The image fluctuates to digital softness from time to time as well and often looks like it's on the verge of digital collapse, held together with digital bailing wire and seeming to want to just fall in pieces to the bottom of the screen. Colors are not very true or organic. The image is well saturated, and colors are vibrant, but there's not a lot of depth or nuance at work. The palette is very simple and lacking the excellence in saturation, contrast, and vividness that the best of the film-based and Blu-ray format releases can provide. Whites are decent enough but black crush is in evidence as well (look at the 26-minute mark and the 41:25 mark for a couple of examples). Skin tones suffer along the same lines as the general palette, lacking real tonal nuance. Drop Squad doesn't look awful -- there have been far worse transfers on Blu-ray -- but this is definitely on the bottom end of the spectrum. The most forgiving audiences will find this watchable, but even casual videophiles will be repulsed.

Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mill Creek drops Drop Squad onto Blu-ray with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. There's not much going on here. The film is dialogue heavy. Fortunately, dialogue is adequately clear, well prioritized, and center imaged for the duration. Some light musical cues are nicely spaced, and clarity is adequate, but there is not a significant feel for depth to music. Environmental immersion is obviously limited to the front, but the track does a decent enough job of rendering sonic atmosphere well enough to at least help set and define the scene.

Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included.

Drop Squad Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The controversial Drop Squad does not earn a controversial Blu-ray: it's just poor. The video is borderline awful and there are no extras. The audio track, as basic as it may be, is the "highlight." Skip it.