5.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
When the son of a successful judge (Taye Diggs) is killed by two police officers (Luke Hemsworth/Gianni Capaldi) and the system sets them free, a hardened veteran detective (John Cusack) finds some incriminating files on the officers and the judge teams up with another mourning father (George Lopez) to take the law into his own hands.
Starring: Taye Diggs, John Cusack, George Lopez, Luke Hemsworth, Gianni CapaldiThriller | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Black lives may matter, but it may be kind of sadly debatable how much River Runs Red does. This oddly fragmented tale would seem to have the cultural zeitgeist in its cinematic corner (so to speak), with a story involving at least a couple of deaths of young men, one of whom is black and both of whom are minorities, at the hands of police officers, but in a sign that sometimes upstart treatments of touchy subject matters can be the most effective, I’d personally have to say that an entry like Blindspotting, which offered a similar plot element of a police shooting of an unarmed black man as almost a sidebar to its main story, may ironically offer more visceral emotional impact, something that really is kind of surprising given that at least parts of that Oakland based film are played for laughs. River Runs Red is very dramatic, on the other hand, but it’s the kind of overheated drama that is frequently the stuff of “ripped from the headlines” made for television movies, which is often what this film plays like. A number of strands are introduced, only to be predictably woven together as various intersections are explored, but the film still has a kind of diffused, emotionally distant tone that is not helped but some fairly clunky dialogue given to a number of characters who are in the throes of various kinds of trauma.
River Runs Red is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Once again technical data on this shoot was almost insanely hard to come by, and in fact it took me a while to uncover a photo of director Wes Miller with one of the two credited cinematographers on the film, Michael Broughy, where an Arri Alexa camera was identifiable, so I'm jumping to conclusions and assuming that camera digitally captured the imagery, which I am again assuming was then finished at a 2K DI. (As always with my reviews, if someone has authoritative data to the contrary, let me know and I'll happily update the review.) The reason why this snark hunt was a bit frustrating is because the imagery here has obviously been intentionally tweaked to give things a more "filmic" appearance with the addition of digital grain. For the most part it's a pleasing gambit, with a subtly textured appearance that doesn't significantly distract due to looking inorganic, and with detail levels remaining high throughout most of the presentation. There are a couple of odd moments where it almost looks like focus pulling was an issue, as well as a few isolated dark sequences, where detail levels falter momentarily. The palette doesn't really look like it was graded much if at all, and as such things have a natural if not especially vivid appearance.
River Runs Red features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that gets occasional jolts of sonic electricity courtesy of things like gunshots, but which tends to get most of its surround activity courtesy of the dolorous piano suffused score by Pierre Heath, as well as occasional ambient environmental sounds. The final third or so the film bursts into action adventure territory, with fights and chases, and the sound design here does provide consistent immersion. Dialogue (such as it is) is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout.
There are no supplements of any kind on this Blu-ray disc.
River Runs Red actually makes some interesting points, but some of the most interesting are almost tangential to the main story, with Charles' life as a judge colliding with the realities of what it means to sentence someone as a felon. The main story here is both too hackneyed and ultimately too unbelievable to ever resonate, though it's obvious that Wes Miller "feels" this situation deeply and was striving to make some kind of point. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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