Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Java Heat Blu-ray Movie Review

American-Style 1980s Action in Indonesia

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater September 18, 2013

From the title, you might surmise that Java Heat is about a pair of baristas caught up in a steamy after-hours affair. But no. It's actually a 1980s-style action thriller set in Indonesia, with a plot that involves both terrorism and a jewel heist. It's the kind of movie Steven Seagal would've starred in back in the day—all explosions and shootouts, cultural misunderstandings and hammy dialogue. It's got a hulking piece of American man-meat for a lead. A seedy European bad guy. A multicultural buddy-cop dynamic. You know the routine. Now, it may not have a weary, about-to- retire policeman who's "too old for this shit," but otherwise, Java Heat exhausts just about every well-worn genre cliche. Not that this is necessarily a problem. These kinds of movies can be a hell of a lot of fun—as any Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, or Jean-Claude Van Damme fan can attest—but that fun is dependent on a good balance of ass-kicking action, goofball one-liner comedy, and enjoyable friction between the characters. Disappointingly, Java Heat never quite finds the right proportions. It occupies a weird middle zone between pulp, guilty-pleasure trash and serious dramatic thriller—it's too smart in some ways to simply be a big, dumb, bomb-go-boom actioner, but also too dumb in others to be truly smart.

Ancillary Twilight hunk Kellan Lutz—who played the intimidating Emmett Cullen, brother of Robert Pattinson's Edward—stars here as Jake Travers, a suspiciously muscle-bound Art History grad student who's traveling in Indonesia for a conference. (No Art History PhD candidate is that ripped.) When a suicide bombing rocks a party he's attending, killing the Javanese Sultan's daughter, Jake is pulled in for police questioning. His interrogator is Detective Hashim (Ario Bayu), a Muslim member of Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism squad, Detachment 88. In the grand tradition of buddy-cop movies, the two don't hit it off well but slowly develop a bond of trust and friendship. Hashim, or "Hash," initially sees Jake as the stereotypical American idiot, ignorant of the country's customs, and Jake...well, he is that stereotypical American idiot, baffled by nearly everything. ("How do you eat that shit?" he asks when he sees Hash eating fried rice. Fried rice.)

Jake proves helpful to the investigation, though—particularly his knowledge of the now-missing Crown Jewels, which the princess was wearing the night of the blast—and soon the two men are tracking down leads together and butting both one another's heads and the skulls of the bad guys intent on stopping them. After a surprise attack reveals how handy Jake is with a pistol, it becomes clear that he isn't exactly who he claims to be. Without spoiling anything, motivations and identities are gradually revealed as Jake and Hashim shoot their way through their quest, spurred on by the former's need for revenge and the fact that the latter's wife and kids have been taken hostage. The villain behind all this madness is Malik, a white-suit-wearing French expat and jewel thief—and implied pedophile to boot—who's played with a ludicrous accent by Mickey Rourke.

Rourke sleazes up the character admirably with small lascivious and psychopathic touches, but this is probably his worst role since 2010's similarly straight-to-video Passion Play. He's not bad, by any means, but this seems like the kind of part he would've taken during his career low in the late 1990s. Likewise, Lutz is merely functional as the brash, take-charge American hero. He does all the requisite action stuff well, but in the quieter scenes, he's got all the charisma of a slab of beef. Better is up-and-coming Indonesian actor Ario Bayu, who likably invests Hashim with a combination of wariness and strength. He and his character feel like they belong in a more dramatic, Infernal Affairs-type film, but he's stuck dragging around Mr. Cultural Insensitivity on a mostly mindless shoot-em-up.

And that points at Java Heat's wider contradiction. On one hand, we rarely see Indonesia represented in film, and this one definitely sets out to illustrate the country's multi-faceted nature, with Christians and Muslims, strip clubs and head scarves existing side-by-side. Penned by advertising guru-turned-screenwriter Rob Allyn and directed by his son, Conor—both of whom have lived and worked part-time in southeast Asia for years—the film takes a nuanced approach to presenting the life and culture of Java. What's unfortunate, on the other hand, is that this intelligently shaded take is wasted in an otherwise dopey and blandly routine action movie. As for that action, it's okay for a low-budget international production—there are some genuinely wow-worthy explosions, if that's your thing—but that can only take a movie so far.

Java Heat Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Java Heat was shot on 35mm with—in most scenes—an exceptionally grainy stock, giving the image a softish, fuzzy quality. Nighttime sequences are overrun with analog noise, and while daylight scenes fare slightly better, the picture still looks gritty and somewhat indistinct. Granted, this could very well have been exactly what the filmmakers were going for, but it's easy to imagine Java Heat looking sharper and cleaner. That's not to say the image is entirely bereft of high definition detail; most closeups reveal a decent amount of fine texture in the areas where you tend to notice it. (Faces, clothing.) The wider the shot, though, the softer it tends to be. Occasionally, the picture seems to have a digital look—for a while, I even thought it may have been shot with a DSLR—but there are no obvious compression issues. At least, none that are visible over the 1080p transfer's heavy patina of grain. Color-wise, there are no real issues either besides some slightly crushed blacks. The overall aesthetic is a near-perpetual warm cast that really emphasizes the "heat" of the title.

Java Heat Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film gets the standard lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound treatment on Blu-ray, and the results—for a lower-budgeted action movie— aren't bad at all. As there seems to be an explosion or shootout every few minutes, you can expect lots of directional gunfire and sprays of debris. The sound design is fairly robust, with screeching metal-on-pavement car crashes, a good deal of ambience—crowded festival clamor, the sounds of insects and birds and street noise—and a dynamic range that handles it all with ease, pumping out clear highs and floor-shaking lows. The orchestral/electronic score pushes the film along, and the music has great presence and an immersive quality. Dialogue is mostly English, with a good bit of Indonesian sprinkled in for local flavor, and it's always cleanly recorded, well balanced, and easily understood. There are no problems here whatsoever. The disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in bright yellow lettering, and there are always un-removable subs for the Indonesian dialogue.

Java Heat Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making Of (HD, 27:37): A well-made mini production documentary, showing the father/son adventure that was the making of the movie. Includes generous behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with Rob and Conor Allyn, and the input of all the film's key actors. Mikey Rourke, notably, does all of his interview segments in his silly French accent.
• Trailer (HD, 1:50)

Java Heat Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The straight-to-video low-budget action movie sub-genre is such a minefield of awfulness that few are willing to run through it. Seeing a merely decent one, then, is like making it through unscathed. And that's Java Heat; it's not great, but it's a relief, in that you don't feel like you completely wasted your time watching it. Filmed in Indonesia by partial expat Americans, the film is an attempt to make an exoticized, 1980s-style actioner, and to that limited extent, it succeeds. Were it made in 1987, it would've hypothetically starred Steven Seagal or similar, so keep that in mind when considering a purchase. IFC's Blu-ray release features an exceptionally grainy—but probably true-to-source—transfer, a hefty sound mix, and a worthwhile making-of documentary.