In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie Review

Another Literary Adaptation by James Franco

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson May 26, 2017

After directing two adaptations from novels by William Faulkner and one by Cormac McCarthy, James Franco continues the trend of cinematizing the Great American Novel with this screen version of John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle. Besides reading a lot of Steinbeck in his teens, Franco became more familiar with the California author on stage in 2014 when he portrayed George Milton for a Broadway production of Of Mice and Men, which was also recorded by National Theatre Live. In Dubious Battle is a 1936 novel by Steinbeck and the first of his Dustbowl Trilogy, preceding Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Scribe Matt Rager's screenplay adaptation of In Dubious Battle marks the ninth major book by Steinbeck to reach the big screen. (David Ward's 1982 film Canary Row also lifted material from Steinbeck's 1954 novel, Sweet Thursday.) Steinbeck's writing of In Dubious Battle coincided with the passage of the Wagner Act, a New Deal enactment that allowed folks to join and form unions.

I gather from my research that Rager and Franco have largely followed the novel (unread by me). The story is set in 1933 in the beautiful California Valley where hundreds of fruit pickers are seeking to have their wages raised from $1 to $3. Chris Bolton (Robert Duvall), the crusty landowner of the Bolton Orchards, initially promised his employees that he would raise their pay but due to circumstances brought on by the Depression, he delivers the bad news that their earnings will stay the same. The migrant workers demand that they should receive the $3 rate and Bolton's counteroffer of $1.20 doesn't appease them. Bearded Mac McLeod (James Franco) and his younger protégé Jim Nolan (Nat Wolff) try to stir the assembled crowd into organizing a strike. The working conditions are so poor that a step ladder easily breaks and Dan (John Savage) badly injures himself. Mac attempts to use the incident as a rallying cry to band everyone together and protest the anti-labor policies of capitalist pigs. Mac is a "do everything for the cause" kind of guy and he demonstrates to Jim how to deliver a baby. Lisa (Selena Gomez), the unwed mother whose father-in-law London (Vincent D'Onofrio) is the future union leader, has romantic sparks with both Jim and Mac but they don't really go anywhere. Mac goes to the local farmer Mr. Anderson (Sam Shepard) and strikes a deal in which the workers can stay on his land in exchange for picking his apple trees for free. Meanwhile, Bolton has hired scabs and this sets off a war between the Pinkerton agents and the strikers.

Mac and Jim chat on a box car.

In Dubious Battle is a sprawling $15 million indie production that tries to incorporate and tell the stories of too many characters. In an interview on this BD, Franco explains how he wanted to use an Altmanesque approach, fusing multiple character storylines together. The film includes many vignettes containing sets of characters in individual scenes that altogether lack cohesiveness. It is not so much that each scene needs to reach a resolution after it concludes, however. Rather, with so many characters to juggle, Rager's episodic screenplay is structured like a collection of short stories that doesn't develop the characters sufficiently or with the proper amount of depth. Franco needed some more effective transitional devices. The director's use of crosscutting and flashbacks to earlier points of a character's story is rather pedestrian.

Perhaps obligated to stick so close to a 300-page novel, Franco tries to cram in a lot of material and his camera constantly seems restless. Franco and his cinematographer Bruce Thierry Cheung needed to show more patience with their actors. They do well to vary angles but the camerawork is jittery. I think that they would have gotten more out of their actors if they went for longer takes.

In Dubious Battle contains several big speeches by big-name actors in cameos that encapsulate the rhetoric of "We shall overcome." However, Franco steers away from overt sentimentality while retaining Steinbeck's socialist themes. The multi-talented filmmaker tries too hard to avoid melodrama and this actually costs one scene from having a deep emotional impact. The strikers are advancing towards the remorseless Frank the Foreman (Scott Haze) and his posse. Franco shows restraint in his use of composer Volker Bertelmann's low-key score and his staging of the scene. But if Franco would have went for more, he could have produced some powerful moments. Despite these quibbles, In Dubious Battle is a solid historical drama that contains lovely and poetic images evocative of Terrence Malick. Franco's film is very sharp when it comes to color, lighting, and composition. He still needs to discover a narrative rhythm that will accommodate all of his characters and the story's pace.

In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In Dubious Battle makes its North American debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Momentum Pictures (an offshoot of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) with this Blu-ray/DVD combo. Franco's movie is given an MPEG-4 AVC-encoded transfer on this BD-50, which carries an average video bitrate of 28370 kbps and a total bitrate of 32.55 Mbps. The 2.35:1 framed picture is very strong with vibrant colors in the outdoor day scenes and deep blacks in the interiors. For the latter, Franco and Cheung strive for harsh lighting and chiaroscuro effects. (See Screenshot #s 18-20 and the black character practically in silhouette in #10.) Franco apparently also added some faux grain and/or digital noise in post to enhance the period look and the grittiness of the milieu (e.g. the scene with Ed Harris's character in #7 as well as other instances). Skin tones can vary somewhat from character to character (Sam Shepard's Mr. Anderson has a ruddy complexion in #4). The movie overall is quite dark and Momentum's transfer captures the delicate lighting with aplomb.

Momentum has demarcated the movie into sixteen scene selections.

In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Momentum Pictures delivers a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track (1783 kbps, 16-bit) and a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 option. I wish that Momentum would have used a bit depth of 24 and really maxed out the audio bitrate. The illiterate characters' broken English is often difficult to discern and I found myself turning up the volume on my receiver during the first act. Plainly, words and syllables are sometimes hard to hear. Luckily, Momentum includes optional English SDH. Music and f/x are pretty well reproduced but they could sound better on Blu-ray.

In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• INDUBIOUS BATTLE: Behind The Scenes (10:15, 1080p) - not so much a featurette as it is an interview with James Franco intercut with various scenes from the movie. Franco speaks slowly and deliberately, appearing tired from a long shoot. His remarks are constructive, though, and the viewer learns some things about his reading of Steinbeck and working with actors (both young and old). In English, not subitled.

• Momentum Pictures Trailers - trailers for three other titles in Momentum's catalog. These load after the disc's insertion and can be skipped.

In Dubious Battle Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In terms of quality and the long line of Steinbeck adaptions, In Dubious Battle sits in the middle of the road. It's a good old-fashioned drama about a seminal labor movement that wears its heart on its sleeve. It's script is also uneven and inconsistent with pacing issues and character development problems. But it is very well-shot and lit. Momentum Pictures delivers a razor-sharp image and an average sound track. The lone bonus feature is a good interview with Franco. I was hoping for a full-length commentary but given the polymath's insanely busy schedule, that was likely not possible. A MILD RECOMMENDATION for In Dubious Battle.