Everly Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Everly Blu-ray Movie Review

How can something so loud be so tedious?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 3, 2015

Director Joe Lynch's (Knights of Badassdom) prostitute-fights-for-her-life-at-Christmas film Everly plays like a mash-up of Kill Bill meets Die Hard, but without the charisma, fine-tuned characters, pitch-perfect writing, or expert direction that helped make those films classics. In essence, Everly is a shell of the movies it imitates, accentuating its superficialities above everything else, resulting in a mechanical, unimaginative, and, despite all its gory guns-blazing mayhem and noise, tedious affair. The film is all about mayhem and a desperately wannabe cool factor (it doesn't get any more pseudo-"cool" than slowly panning through the destruction to a Christmas song...more than once) that never gets off the ground, despite leaping with all its might in its frenetic first and third acts and its desperate-for-drama-and-added-depth-while-slowing-down-the-mayhem-but-just-for-a-bit middle.

Everly aims her Sig at an assailant.

Everly (Salma Hayek), a high-end prostitute who is essentially the property of the wealthy Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe), is targeted for termination when it's discovered she's been secretly cooperating with the law. The severed head of a police detective tips her off. She manages to fend off her first attackers with a pistol she keeps stashed away in the toilet but faces wave upon wave of ever-more-dangerous killers, both hired men and other prostitutes hoping for a cut of reward money. Things get personal when Everly's mother (Laura Cepeda) and daughter (Aisha Ayamah), neither of whom she has seen in some time, are brought into the picture. As her killers become more and more sadistic and determined, so too must Everly resort to extreme measures to stay alive and keep her family safe.

Drama? A story that matters? Substance beyond the surface? Forget it. Everly's laser-like focus on guns, bullets, F-bombs, and blood leaves no room for anything more than a cursory, empty story that really only seems important in order to give the audience's abused ears a few moments of middle movie time to settle down from the gunfire. The dramatic angles -- whether Everly's or her family's -- are threadbare at best and unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. Why is it that movies that need a story can't get one right, and movies that don't need a story, those few like this one that are so intent on just inundating the audience with carnage, waste time dropping one in? It comes off as disingenuous and adds nothing to the movie beyond a few pebbly rattles in an otherwise empty energy drink can that's marketed solely by the flash of its extreme label and the short burst of vitality it has to offer the consumer. If the movie's just a vehicle for violence, just shoot 90 minutes of violence. No need to be pseudo-artful about the secondary stuff.

But Everly fails even considering whatever "bang for the buck" its gimmick has to offer. The movie head rushes into mayhem, having fun with the idea of a prostitute fighting for her life and undergoing a number of physical and emotional hurts along the way, but it feels hollow even in its parade of violence. It's not spectacle, it's not original, it's not even fun. The movie works at a laborious pace, dutifully doing what it can to engender goodwill by way of fantasy fan service, cobbling all the pieces together with little concern for rhythm, creativity, or all-out chaos. Sure it's loud and bloody, and there's some twisted stuff here and there, but it's pretty much a straightforward shoot 'em up that seems to settle for just "chaotic" (which really isn't all that special these days in the post-Tarantino's-heyday-era), dancing all around the blood-stained periphery but never going full-bore into total insanity, which seems the goal and may not have made for a necessarily better film but at least a more honest film that fans might embrace rather than wondering why there's not more to it than empty violence that only goes about 80% of the way to excess.

Everly Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Everly's 1080p transfer, sourced from a digital shot, isn't quite the stunner one might expect. The HD sourcing gives the movie a flat, dull overlay. Detail rarely only reaches the point of absolute excellence. Faces and clothes occasionally push to the limits of 1080p's ability to reveal the most complex details, but generally the image is fairly flat with but "good" detailing and a number of softer shots thrown in. There's a solid enough color palette that pushes warm and flat with some nice bursts of color, like a purple/pink wig worn by one of the prostitutes who comes to try and kill Everly. Black levels are decent if not a bit pale, while flesh tones push mildly warm. The image struggles with banding and, less frequently, noise. It's not a looker by any stretch of the imagination, but it gets the job done without too much in the way of major, distracting technical problems.

Everly Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Everly shoots up sound systems with an aggressive -- really aggressive -- DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Gunfire and explosions aren't just loud, they're borderline ear-shattering. Shotguns blasts and other, heavier shots literally shake the fountain, while general pistol fire packs a healthy, powerful thud. Music is deep and aggressive, too, with wide spacing and no shortage of surround immersion and subwoofer weight. The track features a seemingly endless barrage of surround details that place the listener in the midst of the chaos, whether screams, thuds, gunshots, or other bits of mayhem. The track is all about juice, about going as full-on with the movie as possible. Dialogue, from the gentlest whisper to loudest scream, enjoys good, clear accuracy and center placement. It lacks nuance, but there's no shortage of incredibly hard-hitting elements that make this one of the absolute most rawly potent listens on the market.

Everly Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Everly contains two commentaries and a music video.

• Audio Commentary: "Creative Feature" commentary with Director Joe Lynch, Co-Producer Brett Hedblom, and Editor Evan Schiff.
• Audio Commentary: "Technical Feature" commentary with Director Joe Lynch and Cinematographer Steve Gainer.
• Music Video (1080p, 3:27): "Silent Night" by Raya Yarborough and Bear McCreary, directed by Joe Lynch.

Everly Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Every inch of Everly feels like it was pulled from a violent wet fan dream where a favorite sultry actress takes more punishment than Jack Bauer and doles out revenge on those who would harm her or her family. The film emphasizes violence over skin, so audiences hoping to see Salma shooting bad guys while topless are in for a disappointment. Audiences hoping to find a balanced movie are also in for a disappointment. Fans of mindless shooters with a paper-thin, recycled revenge/protection/self-defense plot that amps up the noise and overflows the screen with blood might get a kick out of the movie, but Tarantino, and even most of the clones, do it much, much better. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Everly features fair video, ridiculously aggressive audio, and a couple of commentary tracks. Skip it.