6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The Barber, examines two men fixated on what triggers the enormity of evil: a father whose life is destroyed in pursuit of a killer, a son caught in a deadly charade as he tries to unravel his father's obsession.
Starring: Scott Glenn, Chris Coy, Stephen Tobolowsky, Kristen Hager, Jessica Lu (I)Thriller | 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 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The Barber is the debut feature from director Basel Owies, and it's an unexpected thriller anchored by a strong lead performance from Scott Glenn, who usually plays supporting parts. A reliable presence, Glenn has portrayed everything from a thuggish rodeo rider in Urban Cowboy to Clarice Starling's mentor in The Silence of the Lambs to the polarizing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in W. His ability to play heroes and villains with equal conviction is essential for the title character in Owies' film, who may or may not be a serial killer. The Barber is the first feature from Chapman Filmed Entertainment, a company formed by the Dodge College of Film & Media Arts at California's Chapman University. Both director Owies and the film's producer, Travis Knox, are Dodge graduates. The company's aim is to pair students with film industry professionals on high-quality projects with low budgets. Judging from this initial entry, the formula has promise. With no money to waste, most of the effort goes into the writing and the performances—and it shows.
Specific information about the shooting format of The Barber was not available, but it was obviously shot digitally, which is consistent with the micro-budget approach of Chapman Filmed Entertainment. The cinematographer was Allen Liu, making his feature film debut as director of photography after years of experience on the crews of numerous films, both studio and independent, and serving as DP of several shorts. According to the credits, post-production was completed on a digital intermediate, from which ARC Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced. The Blu-ray image is clean, sharp and detailed, with a naturalistic palette that emphasizes the warm earth tones of the country setting, as compared to the cool blues and blacks of Chicago. Blacks are solid, contrast is good and the whole affair has the grainless HDTV appearance that many Blu-ray enthusiasts have come to prefer as the visual style of choice. With limited extras, ARC has provided an average bitrate of 24.96 Mbps, which is very good for digitally originated material.
The Barber's 5.1 soundtrack, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, is effective but not especially showy. Sequences like the early Chicago flashback, which includes a brief insert of one of the serial killer's victims pounding against her coffin, register forcefully, and there are a few encounters in the present day that involve loud sounds with intense impact (e.g., when Chief Hardaway arrests and interrogates John). Generally, though, The Barber's sound mix focuses on dialogue, which remains in front, and environmental sounds appropriate to a small town, including the occasional downpour. A few brief scenes in present-day Chicago aren't set in any locations that would vary the soundscape. The dialogue is always clear, and the musical score by Freddy Sheinfeld (TV's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) adds an understated thriller element without going overboard.
Scott Glenn's performance in The Barber is a masterpiece of ambiguity, constantly hovering between a man wrongly accused and a monster hiding in plain sight. The film doesn't break new ground or re-invent a genre, but Glenn holds the screen, and you end up studying his expressions for clues just as intensely as the people who suspect him. The film is carefully plotted and capably told, and it's been given a superior presentation on Blu-ray. Recommended.
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