Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

Semper Fi Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 3, 2019

Semper Fi may raise the hackles of some Marines despite its obviously evocative title since it features a team of buddies who “go rogue” in a way to help arrange a jailbreak for a relative of one of them. The film is a kind of curious study in cinematic schizophrenia in any case, one part family drama involving Cal (Jai Courtney), a Marine reservist about to be deployed to Iraq, and his ne’er-do-well little brother Oyster (Nat Wolff), and another part war drama depicting Cal’s “adventures” overseas with his friends and battalion mates. The film plies a number of clichés in both of these idioms, but could have probably made it through the believability gauntlet nonetheless if the story didn’t ultimately become a kind of weird caper escapade when Oyster, not exactly an exemplar of moral prudence, gets railroaded into a long prison sentence after a drunken brawl ends in a death.

Semper Fi kind of goes the hyperbolic route even beyond its wartime sequences in its depiction of Oyster’s tribulations at the hands of evidently sociopathic prison guards (are there any other kind of guards in films like this?), which perhaps at least gives a little credibility to Cal’s efforts to bust him out of stir. But the film never quite manages to knit everything together very artfully, and instead tips over into serious lapses in logic once the whole jailbreak angle is gotten to.

This is a perhaps surprising follow up to the Oscar nominated documentary Murderball by co-writer and director Henry Alex Rubin, who obviously wants to detail the obviously relevant issues of both emotional and physical trauma vets face upon returning from active duty. Unfortunately, the whole melodramatic angle of an errant little brother makes this a rather odd entry in the “PTSD” subgenre of war movies.

Semper Fi Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Semper Fi is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists RED cameras, with the perhaps appropriate so-called Weapon brain and the VV sensor which I believe can capture at resolutions up to a native 8K. That in turn leads me to wonder what resolution the DI was finished at, a datapoint which the IMDb unfortunately doesn't include and which I haven't been able to track down online anywhere (if anyone can point me to authoritative, verifiable information, private message me and I'll happily update the review). While the film doesn't offer a ton of opportunity for "wow" visuals, detail levels are uniformly excellent throughout the presentation, with no resolution problems being encountered vis a vis elements like dusty "Iraqi" battlefields and the like. There is a prevalence of neutral beige like tones throughout the presentation, so that when pops of real color do show up, they pop quite impressively. There are a few scenes in the prison that suffer from minor deficits in shadow detail. I noticed no compression anomalies.

Semper Fi Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Semper Fi's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix gets sporadic workouts courtesy of the battle elements, but a lot of the surround activity is actually offered here in the stateside sequences, courtesy of some outdoor material where ambient environmental sounds dot the side and rear channels, or even in some of the crowded interior scenes, as the bar where the devastating fight breaks out. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Semper Fi Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Writer / Director Henry Alex Rubin


• Loyalty and Brotherhood: Making Semper Fi (1080p; 16:54) is a decent EPK with snippets from the film, interviews and behind the scenes footage.


• A Battle of Honor: Where Devotion Lies (1080p; 6:55) focuses on different kinds of brotherhood.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 6:09)

Semper Fi Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kind of hilariously, aspects of Semper Fi echo a long ago and long forgotten 1938 entry which was the only on screen pairing of the then married Frances Farmer and Leif Erikson (as he spelled his name that particular day), Ride a Crooked Mile, which featured Leif as a young officer torn between loyalty to the service and to his criminally inclined father (Akim Tamiroff), a character who, like Oyster in this film, plans on a daring break out of imprisonment. Since I'm probably the only person in creation to make that particular connection, suffice it to say that Semper Fi may well remind other viewers of countless other films detailing dysfunctions between brothers, with matters of divided loyalties providing grist for the dramatic mill. Fans of the cast may want to check this out, and technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.