Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 17, 2022

Brian Presley may be graced or cursed (depending on one's point of view) with one of the more iconic surnames in history (even if he isn't actually related to the most iconic bearer of that particular moniker), but chances are unless you're a fan of a spinoff of General Hospital called Port Charles, you probably aren't that acquainted with his work as an actor. Presley, like many who make their livings in front of the camera, evidently "really wanted to direct", as the old saying goes, and a few years ago he made his debut in that capacity with The Great Alaskan Race, a film with undeniably noble intentions but which may have arguably not connected as well as it might have. The same might be said of Hostile Territory, Presley's follow up effort and another film which deals with children in distress in a historical setting. In this particular case, a "ripped from the [archival] headlines" element is supposedly in evidence due to a plot conceit whereby a gaggle of kids thought to have been left without parents due to the vagaries of the Civil War are loaded onto a so-called Orphan Train and shipped to a somewhat questionable future. Now some curmudgeons may recall a certain Shirley Temple entertainment called The Littlest Rebel, and that probably overly sanguine depiction of life during and after the conflict kind of weirdly plays like the flip side of this film, in that Shirley spends the story trying to reunite with her soldier father, whereas in this film it's the father, a former POW named Jack Calgrove (Brian Presley), who returns home to discover his wife has died and his children have been taken into "custody" for an uncertain fate.

While Presley's screenplay has a number of undeniably interesting elements, including a coterie of Native American sharpshooters who enter the fray and some of whom are actually part of the contingent of so-called "good guys", there is a lot going on in the film, and I'm frankly not sure all of it is woven together in an especially artful way. Perhaps the most debilitating aspect of Presley's formulation, though, is that the Calgrove children (all played by Presley's actual kids) are not being sent to a possibly horrifying new living arrangement, but instead to be with their oldest brother Phil (Cooper North), who is a soldier stationed in what was then the relative safety of Missouri. That would seem to take the urgency out of the situation, though the underlying conceit here is that Jack obviously isn't aware of what's happened to his kids and is understandably distraught.

But Presley isn't content to merely deal with a father trying to find his children under less than optimal circumstances. In that "noble intention" category, Presley adds a veritable laundry list of other "issues", including race relations, the fates of newly freed slaves, a "working girl" with a heart of gold, several orphans of various backgrounds, and a scuzzy bunch of former Confederates up to no good. The basic through line is established decently quickly (the first act is a bit tedious, but things then pick up), but Presley wants to explore any number of nooks and crannies, some of which are admittedly interesting in their own way, but which seem increasingly like needless detours as the story progresses.

While Presley obviously is aiming for some heart rending drama, he's undercut at times by his own presentational and narrative flourishes. Why, for example, is each and every orphan suddenly grimy within seconds of being rounded up, as if they had been selected from a nearby touring company of Oliver!? Similarly, why would a bunch of prisoners of war, seeming kept captive for some time, all have fresh blood and wounds on their faces and bodies?

Kind of weirdly, fans of cult television series who watch this film may be reminded of two western series that barely lasted a season each and which actually both ran on ABC in the late sixties. The Monroes features the trials and tribulations of a family of orphans trying to make a go of it in the west after their parents are killed. The Outcasts, which came along a season later, actually might be the more salient comparison, since it offered two Civil War veterans, one white and one black, exploring the west together. And in fact large swaths of Hostile Territory play like a made for television movie.

Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hostile Territory is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA and Saban Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits feature the "captured with Red" logo, and I'm assuming the DI was finished at 2K. While this has a somewhat flat look that can make things more like a television production that an "epic" feature film, detail levels are routinely quite commendable throughout the presentation. Fine detail on fabrics like the hoods on covered wagons or the badly frayed uniforms some of the soldiers wear is typically excellent. Even some extremely wide shots of vistas can have surprisingly fulsome fine detail on almost miniscule objects within the frame. The palette also looks natural and is nicely suffused for the most part. There are some kind of odd grading choices, including some almost slathered on yellows and blues, and some of these moments do show slight deficits in detail levels, at least in comparison to the bulk of the presentation.

Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hostile Territory features an expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that regularly engages the side and rear channels in the outdoor moments, with everything from battle sounds to galloping horses offering opportunities for both panning effects and discrete channelization of individual effects. John Koutselinis' score isn't going to replace anyone's memories of Moross or Broughton, but is nicely full bodied and sounds fine in this presentation. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes (HD; 16:47) offers an obviously earnest Brian Presley (in "arty" black and white) discussing the film.


• Trailer (HD; 1:43)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA Blu-ray releases, the disc has been authored so that supplements follow one another automatically (so that clicking on the Behind the Scenes featurette is essentially a Play All button. The disc is also authored to automatically move on to trailers for other Well Go USA releases after the Trailer for this film plays. Those trailers for other Well Go USA releases also play automatically at disc boot up.

Hostile Territory Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In the Behind the Scenes featurette included on this disc as a bonus item, Brian Presley lists off the many hats he wears in this production, and some may feel like he might have wanted to divvy up the work load, especially in the screenwriting department. There's some interesting content here, to be sure, but it needed to be shaped more deliberately. Technical merits are generally solid for those who may be considering making a purchase.