5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
An American businessman with a stake in a pharmaceutical company that's about to go public finds his life is thrown into turmoil by an incident in Mexico.
Starring: Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Thandiwe Newton, Sharlto CopleyDrama | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Gringo is an Amazon Studios production directed by Nash Edgerton (The Square) in which an American, in the midst of personal and financial crisis, finds himself taking increasingly desperate, and darkly humorous, measures to salvage the remnants of the thing he once knew as his life. The film strives to find the humor in personal collapse as well as the darkly ambitious worlds of big business, sex, and drugs. But Gringo suffers from uninteresting characters, plot deviations, tonal detours: a general lack of focus, really. It's not funny or dark enough on one end, it's not as gripping and dramatically satisfying on the other. It fails to grab the viewer, instead settling for piecemeal bits of comedy, excitement, and drama that stitch together a coherent narrative but one that leaves the audience unsatisfied and yearning for more.
Gringo arrives on Blu-ray with a well-rounded digitally sourced 1080p transfer. Universal's presentation is not necessarily a standout, but it delivers essentials with agreeable screen presence. Details are consistently crisp. Facial textures, clothes, environments -- whether sharply appointed offices, cramped spaces, shoddy hotels, restaurants, anywhere and everywhere the film goes, from snowy Chicago to blisteringly hot Mexico -- each prove pleasantly revealing and about as complex as one could want on this format. Some lower light shots struggle to hold firm color depth, pushing pasty in chapter six, but the palette, generally speaking, impresses with good saturation and color vitality, extending to both shadow details/black levels and skin tones alike. There is some significant banding in a nighttime shot at the 26-minute mark but other bothersome source or encode anomalies are of minimal concern. Though it's not a standout in any way, this transfer is well-rounded and delivers a good, format-average viewing experience.
Gringo features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The first impressive sonic moment comes when Harold sings along with a rap song in his car, the shot offering positive low end depth and musical spread across the front. The track enlarges and intensifies as necessary. Action scenes are very stout and offer a nice contrast to what is otherwise a fairly straightforward, front-heavy listen. A car crash in chapter 10 delivers a series tumbling, twisting metal, deeply engaged sound elements with a strong low end sensation that dominates the stage with vigorous intensity. A street party in chapter 15 springs to life with immersive authenticity of all elements -- crowd din, blaring music -- and effortlessly draws the listener into the festive environment. Several agreeable discrete effects, such as a helicopter maneuvering through the rears in chapter nine, help create a realistic sound field even in sonically challenging moments. The track handles environmental din very well, too. Background elements inside a diner are filling and full, a buzzer at a basketball court in chapter three saturates the stage with positive intensity, and casual exteriors elements drift into the listening area with positive and immersive cadence. Dialogue commands the picture throughout and presents without any discernible flaw considering clarity, positioning, or prioritization.
Gringo contains a quartet of micro-featurettes. An Amazon Prime digital copy code is included with purchase.
Gringo settles into a murky middle ground where none of its ideas are all that well developed, its dueling tones never mesh, and its characters largely fall flat, with even a solid cast unable to produce much of value. David Oyelowo is, thankfully as the man portraying the main character, the movie's high point, but the otherwise jumbled script, mismanaged tonal offsets, and barrage of poorly developed to nearly superfluous characters offer him very little with which to work against. Gringo isn't a complete misfire -- it's watchable if nothing else -- but it's a case study of a movie that could have been so much more. Universal's Blu-ray delivers a quality A/V experience while a quartet of minimal-impact supplements are included. Worth a look.
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