7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right.
Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, Anthony Mackie, Issa RaeDrama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, 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 | 4.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
One of the more unsettling aspects of the relatively recent reviewed Blindspotting was how it almost stumbled (and/or drove, as the case may be) into a seeming sidebar involving a police shooting of an unarmed black man. The shooting didn’t really have any connection to the character who witnesses it, other than the witnessing itself, which then sends that character off into a roiling psychological substratum where he’s haunted by nightmares and becomes increasingly unsure of his place in the world. Something that made the shooting in that film so visceral is that Blindspotting had plied a semi-comedic tone up to the horrifying sequence where a man is almost randomly shot on a downtown Oakland street. Perhaps because there is a personal connection between a witness and a police shooting victim in The Hate U Give, and perhaps because this film's occasional exploitations of comedy tend to be less whimsical than some elements in Blindspotting, this kind of strangely underappreciated 2018 effort from director George Tillman, Jr. is often extremely unsettling, even if its obviously honorable intentions may be perceived as screed like by some viewers. Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is a sweet African American teenager who has learned to pretty dramatically “compartmentalize” her life. She lives in a somewhat downtrodden, almost exclusively black, neighborhood called Garden Heights, but at the behest of her mother Lisa (Regina Hall), Starr attends a largely white prep school called Williamson, where Starr has matriculated extremely well, though in a way by mimicking one of the more outrageous aspects of another recent film which, like Blindspotting, takes place in Oakland, Sorry to Bother You, where a black character learns to thrive by using a “white voice”.
The Hate U Give is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb lists the Panavision Millennium DXL as having digitally captured the imagery at a source resolution of 8K, which was then finished at a 2K DI. While the film understandably doesn't offer a lot in the visual "bells and whistles" department, this is an extremely appealing looking transfer that offers consistently excellent detail levels, even in sometimes rather odd lighting conditions, as in the purple and red suffused party sequence where Starr meets up with Khalil. Shadow detail is surprisingly extant even in several rather dark scenes, including some nighttime and/or dimly lit interior material. While the palette tends to focus on neutral or burnished earth tones a lot of the time, there are some fantastic pops of color, including some of the blue tinged school sequences. Fine detail is often almost palpable on elements like the school uniforms.
The Hate U Give features an expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track that exploits good surround activity in its use of source cues, as well as some of the bustling activity in the school environment. The party scene also has great immersion, and the horrifying shooting sequence has some good depth in ambient environmental sounds as well as the sonics of the shooting itself. Dialogue is always presented cleanly and clearly on this effective and problem free track.
This year's Academy Award nominations were announced just as this review was being written, and I was really curious to see if perhaps Amandla Stenberg's extremely impressive work in The Hate U Give might have gained recognition (probably in the Supporting Actress category, though she is for all intents and purposes the lead actress in this film). Alas, that honor was not meant to be evidently, but Stenberg really gives this film its emotional anchor, and she's ultimately devastating in this role. The film has a few stumbles along the way, but even those can't seriously distract from a story that is sadly all too common in the black community. Technical merits are first rate and The Hate U Give comes Highly recommended.
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