6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Devoted environmentalists Josh and Dena join with Harmon, a disillusioned former Marine with an extensive knowledge of explosives, to blow up a dam. Their act of ecological protest has sinister consequences.
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning, Peter Sarsgaard, Alia Shawkat, Logan Miller (I)Drama | 100% |
Psychological thriller | 29% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
As someone who has lived most of his life in the Pacific Northwest, I can confirm it rains here. A lot. Maybe not quite as much as some people imagine, but more than enough to keep rivers and streams roaring through a verdant green paradise. That water power also means that there is equally abundant cheap electricity to be had. Of course that also means the once freely flowing rivers, including the mighty Columbia which separates Oregon from Washington, have been dammed to within an inch of their lives over the course of several preceding generations. The dam issue has been at the forefront of environmental activism in this region, and despite the reactionary attitudes of the three eco-terrorists at the center of Kelly Reichardt’s halting step toward the mainstream (no pun intended), Night Moves, several concrete obstacles that have prevented the free flow of various waterways have indeed been breached—legally, and with general if not unanimous consensus that this was the correct way forward. Perhaps central to Night Moves’ depiction of radical environmentalists running amok, those who were not in agreement about this or that particular dam removal have fallen into two camps. The first is comprised of those who feel that any (or at least most) environmental damage done courtesy of the dams is a necessary and even acceptable tradeoff for the benefits provided, including of course plentiful inexpensive electricity. The second is more along the lines of the central trio of the film, those who feel that any dam or environmentally injurious structure or activity needs to be dealt with more aggressively. In other words, one dam being breached is simply not enough. The ironic thing about Night Moves is that it posits three desperate people lurking in the rural environs of my home state of Oregon, plotting to destroy a dam with an explosive laden boat. But Oregon is certainly among the most generally environmentally aware states in the union, if not the most. We after all were the first state to adopt a so-called “bottle bill”, making the return of recyclable beverage containers necessary to recoup a prepaid deposit. We have a pristine and totally public beachway the entire distance of the Oregon coast which is kept miraculously clean due to volunteer efforts like the vaunted SOLV organization. The green energy movement here is alive, well and even flourishing (my own wife works in this industry, which runs the gamut from “glamour” technologies like solar and wind to the less well known but at times even more productive techniques like geothermal, which helps to heat and power thousands of homes in Oregon’s southern cities like Klamath Falls). And so Night Moves has one strike against it from the get go, at least for those of us who live in this region: most people here are already totally aware of the debate over issues like dams, fish recovery and the like, and while our region has indeed been visited by eco-terrorists, in this case it’s a bit like (to horribly mix ecological metaphors) bringing coal to Newcastle.
Night Moves is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Though some sources are reporting this film was shot digitally, unless Reichardt and her DP Christopher Blauveldt did some serious tweaking in post to do things like add digital grain, this has the look of film to me, and in fact may be a smaller format like Ultra 16, given the somewhat fuzzy, and, yes, grainy appearance on display here. There's also a somewhat restricted range of light captured here, and my sense is, if this had been digitally shot, the many dark scenes in the film would have provided at least a bit more shadow detail than what is seen. The palette here has been intentionally tamped down most of the time, something that helps to recreate the kind of gloomy ambience of Oregon but which keeps the film from popping in any meaningful way. Clarity and sharpness are still well above average, if not amazing, and close-ups can reveal excellent fine detail, at least when there's enough light to actually see anything. There are no issues with compression artifacts or other anomalies.
Night Moves' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is a fairly nuanced affair, especially considering the fact that there isn't a whale of a lot of extended dialogue scenes, but ambient environmental sounds are well placed around the surround channels, and the moody, almost ambient, score by Jeff Grace also populates the surrounds quite nicely. There's a nice sense of outdoor space here. Dialogue, such as it is, is presented very cleanly, and the track has no issues of any kind to cause concern.
Those of us who live in Oregon or those who watch Portlandia know that the slogan "Keep Portland Weird" has come to define this region. What Night Moves make clear is that weirdos of all stripes are all over this state, and are sometimes up to no good. This film starts out strongly, but then slowly dissipates its momentum, an odd anomaly that undercuts the fact that Reichardt seems to be more interested in the "after party" than the actual event, so to speak. Still, performances are very strong and there's a palpably unsettling mood running throughout this film. Those with Art House sensibilities will probably get more out of this film than the general public. For them if no one else, Night Moves comes Recommended.
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Tom à la ferme / English packaging / Version française
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