6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A Muslim detective teams with an American posing as a graduate student to find the man behind a series of deadly terrorist bombings in Indonesia.
Starring: Kellan Lutz, Mickey Rourke, Ario Bayu, Tio Pakusodewo, Rio DewantoAction | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
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.
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.
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.
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.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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