5.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
A U.S. Marshal seeking justice for his brother's murder defends a small town from a corrupt Mayor and his henchmen with intents to revive the civil war.
Starring: Stephen Lang, Jackson Rathbone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Ellen Hollman, Lesley-Anne DownWestern | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 1.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The Western has been a mainstay of American cinema since literally the very beginning with The Great Train Robbery. It saw its peak in the time of John Ford and John Wayne, High Noon and How the West Was Won, and the many more beautiful, expansive, prominent, and purposeful films of the time. The genre has never quite reached that same level of mass cinema saturation since, but it has enjoyed a steady uptick in quality and quantity since 1992's Unforgiven revitalized serious interest in the genre. Unfortunately, Director Richard Gabai's Justice is not one of the new classics in the genre. Quite the opposite, the film takes but a dull stab at the genre, barely qualifying beyond the physical sets and props that crudely define the movie's timeframe. The film lacks purpose, pacing, good acting, well-drawn characters, and the direction and photography and sounds that so often enhance the genre. This is a baseline competent but completely forgettable film.
Justice rides onto Blu-ray with a perfectly serviceable 1080p transfer. The film was digitally shot. The image is resultantly a bit flat and glossy, which texturally betrays the core essence so often associated with the genre. The image's inherent cleanliness and smoothness doesn't seem to jive with the dusty, rugged landscape and can be a little off-putting, but it is 2017 and digital is the norm, where cost effectiveness and ease outweigh the textural qualities of the film format. Nevertheless, the image looks more-or-less fine in its natural state. Mild banding and noise creep in at times, but neither prove particularly troublesome in the greater scheme of things. Details are solid enough. Close-ups of clothing reveal impressively dense and complex fabrics and seams. Wooden building façades, dusty streets, facial textures, cuts and flayed skin when a character is repeatedly whipped across his back, even close-ups of scuffed firearms and leather holsters all showcase pleasing general high definition details. Colors are pleasantly robust as well. The image is largely comprised of dusty browns and beiges but a prostitute's red dress and matching lipstick, for example, offer well saturated hues that pop beyond the otherwise dull color scheme. Black levels hold firm and skin tones appear fine. It's not a great looking movie by its nature, but considering what it has to work with, there's little room for complaint with Universal's Blu-ray presentation.
Justice features a nuts-and-bolts DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music plays with fair front-end spacing. Surrounds are utilized but add little-to-no depth to the musical presentation; over the opening titles, for example, one has to put an ear to the surround speakers to even tell that they're engaged. Gunfire, as heard predominantly during the final shootout in the third act, features adequate punch and depth and a decent sense of immersion as shots pop out from various speakers all around the listener. Atmospheric effects are generally effective, whether rolling thunder or din in the bar, even if the latter sounds a bit more detached and canned than authentic to the place and the scene in question. Dialogue drives most of the movie, and there are no problems of note with detail, placement, or prioritization.
This Blu-ray release of Justice contains no supplemental content. A UV/iTunes digital copy code is included with purchase.
"Soulless" best describes the entirety of Justice. The film relies on costumes and setting to define it, and there's absolutely no spirit beyond. The characters are the very definition of flat. Acting is as wooden as the town's storefronts. The story is dull, the script leaves much to be desired, the love story lacks spark, the end shootout fails to excite. It's a rare example of a contemporary Western getting almost everything wrong. Universal's Blu-ray is unsurprisingly featureless. Video and audio are fine, but nothing all that special. Skip it.
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