Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie
HomeFriends for Life Blu-ray Movie 
Mill Creek Entertainment | 2008 | 92 min | Not rated | Apr 01, 2011
Price
Movie rating
6.2 | / 10 |
Blu-ray rating
| Users |  | 0.0 |
| Reviewer |  | 2.0 |
| Overall | | 2.0 |
Overview
Friends for Life (2008)
Big city attorney Jim Crawford had won most of the battles in his life, but he couldn’t win the battle against his wife’s illness. Devastated and alone, he is left to face a lonely future. But suddenly, an unexpected twist of fate (or perhaps even an angel) leads Jim to discover four orphaned wolf pups who face certain death unless he takes them in. Unprepared for the task, but unwilling to see them suffer, he takes them into his care and keeping. It is a daunting task with unintended…sometimes hilarious consequences. As the wolf pups grow, so does Jim’s love for them. But wolves are creatures of the wild, and Jim is faced with the excruciating decision to return his companions from where they came. He does so, hoping they’ll remember him… fearing they won’t. Reluctantly, he must say goodbye once again. What Jim doesn’t anticipate is the way in which his four beloved friends repay his love…in a surprising and courageous way.
Starring: Michael Flynn (I), Jimmy Chunga, Tayva Patch, David Nibley, Tim ShoemakerDirector: Michael Spence
| Family | 100% |
| Drama | Insignificant |
Specifications
Video
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080i
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH
Discs
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Playback
Region A (B, C untested)
Review
Rating summary
| Movie |  | 3.5 |
| Video |  | 1.5 |
| Audio | | 2.0 |
| Extras | | 0.0 |
| Overall | | 2.0 |
Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie Review
Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 28, 2019Mill Creek has released the family faith-based film 'Friends for Life' to Blu-ray. The film is currently only available as part of a double feature with 'Footprints.'
Jim (Michael Flynn), a retired lawyer, has just lost his wife Pam. He's grieving, but his son Alan (Tim Shoemaker), himself a lawyer, is too busy to really allow his mother's death to impact his life. Jim, on the other hand, is struggling. He's an emotional wreck, closing himself inside the house and away from the rest of the world. He finds his wife's diary and reads the final entry, which is directed at him, imploring him not to allow grief to overwhelm him and define his life. But it is not until he is visited by an angel "healer" in human form (Jimmy Chunga) and takes in four hungry wolf pups that his life takes a turn for the better. It's an act of compassion that ultimately sees him find renewed purpose while he and his son battle greedy land developers threatening to take over his small corner of the world.
Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality
Mill Creek presents Friends for Life on Blu-ray with a 1080i (that's not a typo) high definition transfer framed at 1.78:1. The image is problematic for the duration, with macroblocking, poor clarity, lackluster definition, jagged lines, some banding, and overall sloppy encoding all defining the image. Look at a barn interior at the 31 minute mark. There's absolutely no sense of textural quality to the walls or floor. It's flat as flat can be in high definition. The image overall is not a total loss -- textural qualities, notably faces, occasionally rise to acceptable levels -- and it looks a bit better than its on-disc companion, Footprints, but it's an extremely poor image in the aggregate.
Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality
Audio for Friends for Life is encoded in a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless configuration. The track rarely offers any opportunistic or environmentally supportive surround usage, but the front side does offer healthy spread and space to various location-specific details such as traffic, heavy machinery at a construction site, and the like. Clarity is nothing to write home about, and clutter in a courtroom at film's end, a key moment, is one of the worst offenders. Dialogue has a harsh edge about it and there are some examples of hollowness (listen at the 1:10:20 mark), but essential audible clarity is fine, and poisoning is maintained in the front-center location. A few scenes struggle with prioritization.
Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras
No supplements are included.
Friends for Life Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation
The film is touching and warm, a perfectly fine family friendly production. Mill Creek's Blu-ray, however, is subpar. Video is watchable but nothing more. Audio is likewise passable but never precise. No extras are included. Worth a look, and this film is much more polished than its on-disc counterpart, Footprints.
