6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
16 year old street-wise Apple has never had an easy life. Her mother, June Bailey, is an addict and prostitute, is verbally and physically abusive, and is grooming her daughter to follow in her footsteps. Apple knows the streets, alleys and motels like the back of her hand but wants more from her life. She possesses a tenacious, tough, indomitable spirit, and will not surrender to fate. Apple runs away from her mother and tracks down her father whom she has never known, as he was only 19 when he got Apple's mother pregnant. Apple begs her now Wall Street Broker father, Tom Fitzpatrick, to take her in.
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, Brendan Fraser, Rosario Dawson, James Earl Jones, Stephanie SzostakDrama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
If you’ve come here in search of The Rolling Stones, you might in fact get a bit of a rock ‘n’ roll attitude (or perhaps at least a goth or punk one) in this particular Gimme Shelter, though very little of that vaunted Jagger swagger. Vanessa Hudgens actually does kind of maraud her way through the leading role in this well intentioned but ultimately hackneyed drama, but it’s less of Mick’s feline grace on display here than a kind of aggressive biker gang stance. Hudgens plays young teen Agnes Bailey, a troubled young girl who is planning something big as the film opens, something that seems incredibly important, maybe even something as drastic as suicide. The answer turns out to be considerably more mundane—Agnes is simply getting ready to shear her locks, perhaps in a defiant reclamation of her battered self image. It turns out Agnes is stuck in a highly dysfunctional home life with a harridan junkie mother ironically sharing the same first name with Mrs. Cleaver herself, June (Rosario Dawson). Agnes finagles her way from New York to New Jersey, ending up in the considerably more luxe environment of her estranged father, Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser). Gimme Shelter never really fully explores the obviously roiling family dynamics at play here, and it may be one of several potentially troublesome flaws in a film that wants to deliver the feel good vibe even as it wallows in the story of an isolated and angry young urban girl.
Gimme Shelter is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. According to the IMDb, this was shot on Super 16, and may I just start out by commenting how nice it is to see a relatively low budget film actually shot on film for a change. This transfer has the typically softer and somewhat grainy ambience of its format, and so will probably not be anyone's idea of "reference quality" video, but it does quite accurately reflect its source. The only major complaint some may have with the appearance here is the somewhat pallid saturation levels. While the almost absurdly crisp whites and beiges of the Fitzpatrick family manse pop quite nicely, often flesh tones are kind of curiously monochrome and there's no real vividness in terms of palette. Fine detail is very good to excellent, giving a visceral intensity to Apple's facial wounds (not to mention her piercings) as well as more mundane items like the weathered faux leather covering of McCarthy's Bible. There's appealing depth to the image, and while contrast isn't especially well defined, the film doesn't really suffer in the areas of shadow detail or resolution of the somewhat subdued and often similar tones in the palette.
Gimme Shelter's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix isn't completely immersive, partially due to the perhaps commendable lack of ubiquitous source cues, but it does deliver excellent fidelity with occasionally nicely done surround moments. Some of the cacophony of the halfway house is really well rendered here, and two harrowing scenes out on freeways or highways also offer nuanced mixes. But the bulk of this film is front heavy dialogue. There's nothing exciting about that aspect, but it's presented here with clarity and no problems of any kind.
There were several key moments in Gimme Shelter where I could sense a deeper, more involving effort than what ultimately ended up on screen. Hudgens is a bit mannered as Agnes/Apple, but she also demonstrates some appealing depth here that fans of her High School Musical persona may be surprised she has. But Ronald Krauss' screenplay indulges in too many tropes and way too much shorthand to ever make these characters compelling enough to really care about. This is especially true of Tom, a guy who seems compassionate, decent and rational—except that he has this deeply troubled, evidently illegitimate (even that is never really explained) teenage daughter. If Krauss had thought to look into these aspects at least a little more, it would have provided the audience with a more solid connection to their current predicaments. Hudgens fans may want to check this out, for others interested in some of the same plot points, notably foster care, I recommend watching Short Term 12.
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