5.7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
A down-on-his-luck businessman has to race against time to save the people he unwittingly marked as targets for a professional hit man
Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr., Cole Hauser, Jonathan LaPaglia, Drew Waters, Michael PapajohnThriller | 100% |
Action | 50% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
If it was a joke would it be funny?
Cuba Gooding, Jr. has been hitting the direct-to-video, small-time Action movie market, and he's been hitting it hard. Sacrifice. Ticking Clock. Wrong Turn At Tahoe. Hardwired.
The Hit List. None of these are particularly good films, but Gooding is sliding comfortably into his role as a minor Action movie star. In fact,
his
latest, The Hit List, may very well be the best of this new crop of Gooding/Action/low-budget collaborations. It's a straightforward but
nevertheless engaging and, dare say, ever-so-slightly original movie that seems like it's better than it should be, but not as good as it might have
been in better hands, much like was the case with Ticking Clock. For whatever reason lesser films than this earn wider releases and greater
sums of
studio money; The Hit List has what it takes to have been a pretty solid movie, but it was of course relegated to the bottom-of-the-barrel
DTV scrapheap of projects.
Imagine the movie with someone like Michael Mann or Tony Scott at the helm and a couple of actors like Denzel Washington and Gerard Butler
playing
the leads. It's not that Director William Kaufman (Sinners and Saints) and stars Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Cole Hauser (Pitch Black) aren't good for the movie, it's just that The Hit
List could
have been a superior Action film with a little more flair and attention to detail. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, too bad, so sad, next please.
Cuba loves him some 5.7x28.
The Hit List arrives on Blu-ray with an adequate, but occasionally problematic, 1080p, 1.78:1-framed transfer. The film appears to have been shot digitally, resulting in a flat, glossy image that's absolutely packed with excessive, distracting banding. Otherwise, the image is fairly strong; it's crisp, very clear, clean as a whistle, and nicely detailed. Facial textures are excellent, and the finest nuances of starched shirts and finely-assembled suit jackets can be quite revealing. Colors are stable; whether in bright exteriors or in low-lit bars, the palette appears natural, never artificial, and never too bright or too dull. Black levels are solid, and flesh tones are consistently natural. Though there's a major problem with banding, blocking and background noise are kept to a barely-noticeable minimum. This transfer seems limited only be the quality of the source; it's not always pretty, but viewers should more often than not be satisfied with Sony's efforts.
The Hit List's DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is of a typically-Sony high quality. The film begins with a satisfying and engaging wartime flashback scene where the chaos of battle wonderfully penetrates the entirety of the soundstage. Music is always potent and crisp, every note flowing into the soundstage with effortlessness and from every speaker; the back channels aren't left out in the cold, and the music enjoys fine clarity throughout the entire range. Highs are crisp and lows are pleasantly hefty and never overbearing. Even guitar riffs accompanying the opening title Rock tune slice through the listening area with energetic ease. Background ambience, such as music and television chatter in an otherwise quiet bar, is nicely implemented. High-pitched gunshots emanating from Jonas's FN Five-seveN handgun are delivered with excellent clarity and energy. A barrage of random gunfire in the final minutes -- shotgun blasts, handgun shots, and sprays of automatic weapons fire -- dangerously penetrates the listening area, and a large explosion is accompanied by a potent rumble of bass that's heavier close-up and nicely low but distant when it's heard from further away and stifled through a few walls. Rounded out by perfect dialogue reproduction, The Hit List delivers a top-quality soundtrack that's just as good as many other bigger-budgeted Action movies.
The Hit List features only BD-Live support and previews for additional Sony titles.
The Hit List is fundamentally good enough to have warranted a bigger production that probably would have squeezed all of the potential from the material rather than only some. The movie lacks confidence but is nevertheless well-executed until a choppy final act harms, but doesn't negate, the overall film. It's much like Ticking Clock; there's a strong story here that's simply not been realized to its fullest. Still, the acting is solid -- Gooding, Jr. is particularly strong until the script calls for him to suddenly become some robot with no real purpose at the end -- and the movie is entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking. It's just too bad there's not more to it. Sony's Blu-ray release of The Hit List features good video and strong audio, but not surprisingly is absent any substantial supplemental content. Worth a rental.
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