5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.6 |
Three American friends prevent a terrorist attack on a Paris-bound train.
Starring: Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Judy Greer, Jenna FischerDrama | 100% |
Biography | 85% |
History | 79% |
Thriller | 67% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 kbps)
English 5.1=narrative descriptive
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 1.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
No one has ever had a film career like Clint Eastwood's. He's been a screen star, a worldwide
icon, a successful producer/director, and he has a shelf-load of awards that would be the envy of
any filmmaker. With his 88th birthday fast approaching, Eastwood could kick back and spend
every day on the golf course and every night collecting an honor for lifetime achievement. But
the director's passion for new work appears to be undimmed, and he long ago reached the point
where he's free to try anything he wants. The 15:17 to Paris is the third in a series of films in
which Eastwood set out to explore the exploits of real-life heros—a conscious reaction, as he
says in the extras, to the current predominance of superheroes on movie screens. American
Sniper and Sully were both solid
achievements (and box office sucesses), though not without
their flaws. Now Eastwood has attempted to dramatize the resourceful bravery of three young
Americans who, in 2015, prevented a potential terrorist massacre on a high-speed train bound
from Amsterdam to Paris.
But lightning didn't strike a third time. 15:17 is a dud of a picture, and much of the blame has
been laid on Eastwood's decision to cast the real-life heroes as themselves (a notion undoubtedly
inspired, at least in part, by his use of some of the real-life participants in Sully). But blame
doesn't lie with the first-time actors, who discharge their duties credibly and, as the director
notes, have interesting faces that connect well with the camera. No, the problem lies with the
script by first-time screenwriter Dorothy Blyskal, an assistant on Sully as well as other recent
productions including Live by Night and
The House. Blyskal's script teases a thriller,
but it
delivers something else, and the result is far less interesting than the story deserves. As producer
and director, Eastwood bears the ultimate responsibility for not insisting on a complete overhaul
before filming began.
The 15:17 to Paris was shot by Tom Stern, who has been Eastwood's cinematographer since Blood Work. The film was captured digitally with Alexa and finished on a digital intermediate at 2K. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray features the video quality we have come to expect from such projects, with good sharpness and detail and an absence of noise, aliasing or other interference. The palette is naturalistic throughout and parts of the film would fit comfortably into a promotional video for European tourism. It's a satisfactory image, but it might look even better if Warner hadn't made the bizarre decision to use a BD-50, then waste most of the available space. The disc image is 25.5 GB, which leaves over 20 GB unused and results in an average bitrate of 23.59 Mbps. That's adequate, but other disc publishers—Sony and the Warner Archive Collection, to name two—have demonstrated that even digitally acquired material can look better at higher average rates. Even Warner's theatrical group has implicitly recognized the advantage of more generous compression with releases like Collateral Beauty and Father Figures. It's high past time such mastering practices became standard operating procedure.
The 15:17 to Paris has been equipped with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack that effectively achieves
its modest intentions. The film doesn't have any "big" sound effects or standout set pieces.
There's only one gunshot, and even the fight on the train occurs at realistic levels without the
amped-up blows and punches that you would expect in an action film. The Atmos mixing
provides a nice balance between the sounds of the action onboard and the roar of the train racing
across the countryside—in real life, the latter would probably overwhelm the former—and it
provides understated atmosphere to the film's various locales, both foreign and domestic. The
dialogue is clearly rendered, and the gently understated piano score by Christian Jacob effectively
apes Eastwood's composing style, just as Jacob did in Sully
.
Note that once again Warner has included an utterly redundant DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack and,
once again, the disc defaults to that track rather than Atmos. Remember to select Atmos from the
main menu.
Give Eastwood & Co. credit for noble intentions, but The 15:17 to Paris fails to capture the
dramatic urgency of ordinary guys rising to extraordinary circumstances that Sadler, Stone and
Skarlatos deserve. Read their book instead.
2010
Napoléon vu par Abel Gance
1927
2014
2006
2018
Collector's Edition
2010
2010
2018
1966
1964
2013
2008
2014
2017
2009
2016
Declassified Extended Edition | Photo Book | Poster | ID Badge | Map
2012
2008
Limited Edition to 3000 - SOLD OUT
1971
Masterpiece
2015