Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		0.5
Video		1.0
Audio		0.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		0.5

Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie Review

There goes 82 minutes I can't have back...

Reviewed by Dustin Somner December 22, 2010

False advertising is an amazing thing when it comes to the film industry. Sad as it may be, we’ve all witnessed cover art affording a certain actor top billing, despite delivering nothing more than a cameo appearance. Such is the case with Hard Gun, a film that gives Tony Jaa plenty of real estate on the Blu-ray cover, and implies we’re about to witness a Matrix-inspired action fest with black suits galore. In reality, this is nothing more than a low-budget Thai production with Tony Jaa as a minor villain, and a plotline that borders on incomprehensible. If you’re willing to simply trust me in avoiding this film altogether, save your time and avoid the rest of the review. If not, settle in for a laundry list of insurmountable failures that collectively make this one of the worst Blu-rays to hit the home entertainment market.

His reaction pretty sums up my opinion of this film.

Forced into hiding following a botched robbery attempt, a misfit band of thieves come under fire by members of the local police force leaving the brother of the gang leader dead. Vowing to take revenge on the cop that killed his brother, the leader and one of his henchmen (Tony Jaa) follow the young officer to his hometown, where he’s been reunited with his father, brother, and sister. Believing the best way to get their revenge will be the kidnapping the cop’s younger sister, the two villains hold her hostage in a wooded location on the outskirts of the dusty town, forcing father and son to team up in order to reunite the family.

Sounds pretty cool, eh? In reality, the situation I just laid out only accounts for about one-third of the runtime, with the rest of the plot dedicated to a strange over-the-top rivalry between the siblings and a local gang. When we’re first introduced to the father (who also happens to be the town’s police chief), he winds up on the losing end of a fight with the resident wife-beater of the poverty-stricken community. Fortunately his son shows up just in time to save him, but not before we’re shown a routine flashback scenario demonstrating the father’s inability to pull the trigger in time to save a woman’s life. I have no idea if this was his wife, or just some random stranger, but it sets the stage for a recurring theme that’s only overcome in the closing minutes of the film. Once the son enters the picture, we’re forced to endure long stretches of gambling antics between the siblings, and an eventual showdown with the same wife-beating low-life and his goofy minions. This spans more than a half hour of the film, and encompasses a soccer match, playground fight, a weird game of kick-volleyball, and various other oddball scenarios. By the time the plot comes back to the situation involving the thieves out for revenge, we’ve all but forgotten the serious tone established at the beginning, making it extremely difficult to backtrack in the opposite direction. In fact, the only legitimate reason to revisit the revenge plotline has more to do with showcasing Tony Jaa’s agility than an actual stab at dense storytelling.

As shallow and unpredictable as the plot may be, the real reason to avoid this film is simply the low-budget nature of every element in the production. I’ll dig into the audio/video pitfalls during the following sections of this review, but it remains pertinent to touch on some of the other areas of concern before we move forward. First, I’d suspect a high school student using half his brain could craft a film with more entertainment value than we find here. Between actors slipping during action sequences, mundane fight choreography, and an often nonsensical script, I struggled to maintain focus on the film or even care what eventually happens. It doesn’t help that we never truly grasp much of the plot (aside from what we’re told in the synopsis on the back cover), though I suspect if we’d been let in on the particulars of what’s taking place, most viewers would hit the eject button by the ten minute mark.

Next on my list of downgrades is a complete lack of character building, which became extreme enough that I often wondered how various characters are connected. I’ll admit I originally thought the son was romantically involved with his sister, and believed the troublemaking older brother was in no way connected to the other two siblings. I’d hoped this was due to insufficient subtitles and not the story itself, but the further I made it through the film, the more I suspected this was merely due to inadequate scriptwriting. Most of us can likely remember when we’d write stories as children, and rarely consider the particulars of bringing the audience in on what may seem obvious to us. Hard Gun is a prime example of such juvenile writing, often begging the question “If this was written by an 8-year-old, why is there so much profanity?”

Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Where do I begin? From the horrible yellow-tinged opening credit sequence to the egregious presence of dirt, smudges and burn marks, this is one of the weakest Blu-ray presentations I've witnessed as a reviewer. When a film looks this bad, it's often tough to differentiate between flaws in the source material and inherent weaknesses in the resulting transfer. Despite some questions marks, I'm willing to assert almost ninety percent of the problems are directly associated with the amateur cinematography, low-budget equipment, and general filmmaking incompetence. I know this may sound undeservingly harsh on my part, but if you're given the opportunity to witness such drivel (or happen to waste a nickel on adding this to your collection), I'd wager you'll consider my assessment forgiving. The reason I'm not shifting more blame on the transfer itself is due to the clarity in a handful of scenes, and the general lack of technical deficiencies (aliasing, DNR, or edge enhancement). I can understand the decision not to clean up the source material (especially given the limited audience this film will attract), but the faithfulness to the source material doesn't make for a justifiable high definition presentation.

I could talk all day about the glaring visual deficiencies throughout the film, but rather than waste more of your time on pointing out particular flaws, I'll let my video score and the screenshots paint the intended picture.

Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I'd love to sit down with the voice director of the English dub and ask whether he/she intended this to be the ultimate audio spoof or simply didn't care. The majority of the voice-work sounds like Trey Parker and Matt Stone of "South Park" got their hands on the film, and went for accent imitations that vary between a surfer, a redneck, and insulting asian portrayals. In case your expectations aren't set low enough already, some of the non-dialog voice-work reverts back to the dubbed Thai track, creating variable dialog from the same character. Speaking of the "original" Thai option, viewers can expect more dubbed voice-work that barely matches the lip movements of the original actors. This is obviously a result of post-production audio recording, adding to the overwhelmingly low budget nature of the entire production.

Moving beyond the disappointing aspects of the dialog on both tracks, we're dealing with an inherently weak stereo presentation that never escapes the limited confines of what can best be described as a compromised audio recording. Hiss and crackle permeate most scenes, audio transitions are nonexistent (music often cuts from one song to the next with no rhyme or reason), and volume balance between dialog, music, and effects is nothing short of awful. The only reason I'm not scoring the audio presentation a zero is thanks to my assumption that it could get worse, though not by much.

Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

If you feel lucky when you find a standard definition trailer, you just hit the jackpot.

Hard Gun Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is one of the easiest decisions I've made all year. Under no circumstance should you waste anything of value (including your time) on this film. To those of you who've added the film to your collection already, I sincerely apologize for not posting a review sooner, but at least you've learned a valuable lesson on judging a Blu-ray by its cover.