The Blind Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

The Blind Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 17, 2023

Biopics are big business these days, and it seems like everyone who's anyone is getting their time on the silver screen. Pop icons like Elton John and Whitney Houston have featured in some of the more celebrated films of the past few years. But the phenomena is not exclusive to the secular industry. The Christian film arena has also seen its fair share of excellent Biopics over the years, including films like Ragamuffin, I Can Only Imagine, and I Still Believe. But it's not just music icons in the spotlight. Anywhere there's an opportunity to tell someone's story -- especially if that someone is a very famous someone who has made certain other someones a lot of money -- that story is being told. Now, the trend continues with The Blind, a film exploring the early lives of Phil and Kay Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame. The film, from Director Andrew Hyatt, explores the family's origins in the decades prior to Duck Dynasty and builds a compelling drama that explores not Phil's rise to stardom but rather his turn to Jesus Christ.

Official synopsis: Long before Phil Robertson ('Duck Dynasty') became a reality TV star, he fell in love with Miss Kay and started a family, but his demons threatened to tear their lives apart. Set in the backwoods swamps of 1960s Louisiana, 'The Blind' shares never-before-revealed moments in Phil’s life as he seeks to conquer the shame of his past, ultimately finding redemption in an unlikely place.

Longtime fans of the Duck Dynasty TV show and the Duck Commander brand will not find much here that's new; Phil's story has been told before and his various ups and downs over the decades are well chronicled, so rather than a narrative revelation, at least for fans, this is essentially a dramatized version of his life story, beginning with his football career in high school and college, courtship with and marriage to Kay, and the alcoholism that nearly cost him everything. The film hits its climax when Phil finally puts down the bottle and finds Jesus when he hits rock bottom, solidifying the movie's purpose and grounding Phil's conversion story from isolated drunkard to champion for the Christian faith. The film ends with the real Phil Robertson recalling his story in a very brief denouement that underscores the sheer importance of Phil's decision to follow Jesus.

There are compelling elements to The Blind, but for the most part the film follows a fairly straightforward path of rise, fall, and renewal that is not at all unfamiliar for this style of film. While it's true to Phil's story, it's not necessarily an uncommon refrain. The film does a fine job of building its characters within the framework, pulling the rug through excessive drink, and then building the character back up once he's been baptized, when everything starts to change for the better for Phil. The story is grounded in Phil's telling of it to a man who is dying of a brain aneurism who, through Phil's story, comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ himself.

The cast is solid and one of the film's best assets. While no work is a revelation, Aron von Andrian does inhabit Phil with a sense of deep character understanding, and he is well capable of transforming himself as the moment demands, whether playing Phil as a disorderly drunk whose life crumbles and pushes his wife towards suicide or as a transformed man of God who lives the second chance grace has given him. His best work comes in those grounding moments when he's sharing his life story on a hunting trip, reflecting with deep, inward revelation that tells the story with a straightforward cadence but also an underlying emotion that climaxes in the revelation that it was only his faith that saved him not only now, but in eternity, too.

The Blind Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Blind arrives on Blu-ray with a good enough 1080p transfer. The digital shoot translates well enough to the format. This is clearly not the most elaborate production, and the elements are not the most visually arresting. The digital source elements are in good shape if certainly lagging behind the best of the best, offering good, but not spectacular, detail and color reproduction. Core textures are fine, like facial hair, clothes, and various locations like the Robertson home and bar. Clarity and definition are never excellent, but they always maintain a core level of basic satisfaction that does well by the 1080p resolution. Colors are likewise adequate but never striking, offering good foundational definition and integrity. Contrast is solid and temperature is largely neutral with only some mild pushes to warmth. White levels are good, blacks are adequate, and skin tones are more or less natural. The image does show plenty of source noise but never to a debilitating extent. There are no immediately obvious signs of banding or other encode flubs.

The Blind Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mill Creek releases The Blind to the Blu-ray format with a solid enough DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The elements are primarily front-heavy with only the odd example of surround content that ranks more highly than "cursory." The most intensive surround usage comes at the 58-minute mark when rainfall saturates the listening area to good, but not overwhelming, effect. Otherwise, the back channels feature scattered ambience and music that barely registers. The front end is used plenty, at least, with positive wide stretch along the fronts and grounded dialogue in the center. A few gunshots are heard throughout but never offer much power and intensity. Musical and support content offer satisfactory clarity while dialogue is firmly centered, well prioritized, and clear for the duration.

The Blind Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Blind contains deleted scenes and a featurette. No DVD or digital copies are included, but Mill Creek does ship the disc with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 713): Several scenes with no identifying markers.
• The Story Behind The Blind from the People Who Lived It (1080p, 8:27): As the title suggests, the real people behind the story share their versions of the key events of the film.

The Blind Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Blind is a capable biopic that explores less a rise to stardom and more a rise to life-saving salvation. This is not a story of an empire but rather the war for the heart of a man whose alcoholism nearly costs him everything until he crashes and finds salvation in Jesus Christ. The film will play best for fans of the show and for faith-based audiences, but those outside of those elements will also discover a good, if not mostly derivative, story of fall and redemption. Mill Creek's Blu-ray delivers adequate video and audio paired with deleted scenes and a featurette. Recommended.