6 | / 10 |
Users | 2.5 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Detective Souder, a homicide detective in a small Texan town, and his partner, transplanted New York City cop Detective Heigh, track a sadistic serial killer dumping his victims' mutilated bodies in a nearby marsh locals call "The Killing Fields." Before long, the killer changes the game and begins hunting the detectives, teasing them with possible clues at the crime scenes while always remaining one step ahead. When local girl Anne goes missing, the detectives find themselves racing against time to catch the killer and save the young girl's life.
Starring: Sam Worthington, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jessica Chastain, James Landry HébertThriller | 100% |
Crime | 56% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono
English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
Texas Killing Fields is the feature-length movie version of all of the alphabet soup crime scene television shows that have dominated the airwaves of the past decade or so. It's the same old story of detectives on the case, dead bodies, a parade of suspects, and a little girl in peril, all unmercifully dragged out to twice the size of its small-screen counterparts and with no more flair, purpose, or scope than may be found in any random episode of any number of like-minded television shows. In essence, Texas Killing Fields is a soulless police procedural that's destined to become lost within the mountain of every other soulless crime scene story to come along of late. Director Ami Canaan Mann, daughter of acclaimed filmmaker Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat), tries to infuse the movie with some style -- and she occasionally succeeds -- but the jumbled story, subpar acting, choppy pacing, and thematically vacant elements add up to a slog of a picture that's at its best a dispassionate time killer and at its worst a generic sloth that brings not one single new thing to the table.
Crime scene investigation.
Texas Killing Fields features a good, but not quite great, 1080p Blu-ray transfer. Much of the movie takes place at night or in very dark locales. Strong blacks are critical to the movie's visual structure, and often the Blu-ray does not disappoint. There are certainly a few instances where black objects and shadows meld together into a swampy, undefined substance, but generally blacks are deep, with quality shadow detailing and an aversion to going a shade of dark gray. The movie also looks better, generally, at night. Though the lower light and lesser colors don't produce much vibrancy, the image is here nevertheless stable and filmic in appearance. Bright daytime scenes tend to show strong clarity but also a general flatness, though fine detail in clothes, faces, and worn-down Texas City residences look awfully good. Colors, here, are nicely balanced across the board. On a more general downside, light shimmering is evident once on a bug zapper and again on a striped shirt. Minor banding spreads across faces in a couple of scenes, but otherwise, the transfer proves technically proficient. All told, this is another solid, above-average transfer from Anchor Bay.
Texas Killing Fields arrives on Blu-ray with a strong Dolby TrueHD 7.1 lossless soundtrack. Music features fair clarity and spacing, along with a good, solid low end accompanying element. Music does remain a job reserved primarily for the front speakers. However, the back channels get in on the action when the track calls for ambient elements, which is often. Passing cars, buzzing insects, rustling leaves, heavy rain, and other, varied environmental elements are often presented cleanly and efficiently, effectively pulling the listener into the film's various locales. Gunshots vary from crisp and accurate to heavy and over-exaggerated. Dialogue remains focused in the front center channel and plays with the expected faultless clarity. This is by no means a special or memorable track, but it admirably accomplishes all that's asked of it with little problem and no hesitation.
Only the Texas Killing Fields trailer (1080p, 2:13) and an audio commentary track with Director Ami Canaan Mann and Writer Donald F. Ferrarone are included.
Texas Killing Fields really tries to be something of value, but it falls short of that goal in most every regard. Rather than something novel and exciting, the film is just a double-long rehash of the tired crime scene genre. It lacks a soul to be sure, though its heart is often in the right place. Pacing is sluggish, the plot is ragged, the characters are flat, and the movie's few moments of visual and thematic relevance are washed away by a greater whole that comes up well short of the mark, a whole that's nothing audiences haven't seen a hundred times before on a dozen different television shows. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Texas Killing Fields features good video and audio, but only one supplement. Skip it.
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