The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.5

The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie Review

Criminal Blu-ray

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 31, 2016

The Last Panthers is nominally a crime drama, but like all good crime stories, it's about much more. The Panthers of the title were a real gang of thieves from the former Yugoslavia. They acquired their nickname because they specialized in stealing jewels and, in one notorious case, hid a diamond in a jar of cold cream, aping a scene from The Return of the Pink Panther. The gang became famous for its meticulous planning and the brazenness of its attacks. In a six-year period, the Panthers robbed 120 jewelry stores on multiple continents; most of the loot was never recovered.

Using a fictional Panther robbery as a point of departure, French journalist Jérôme Pierrat and British screenwriter Jack Thorne have crafted a multi-national tale depicting a complex interplay of crime, personal history and geopolitics. With dialogue in English, French and Serbian, The Last Panthers paints a bleak portrait of today's European economy as it adjusts to a new world order. In this rapidly shifting landscape, loyalty to family, nation and ideals is a luxury, and self-interest is paramount. Anyone who tries to do "the right thing" usually ends up causing more harm than good.

The Last Panthers was shown on French, British and German TV in 2015. In the U.S., SundanceTV began broadcasting the series on April 13, 2016. Unfortunately, the version shown by Sundance was significantly altered. Even more unfortunately, Acorn Media has used the Sundance version for its Blu-ray release. The changes are discussed in the Video section below, but viewers interested in seeing The Last Panthers in its intended aspect ratio will have to seek out the Blu-ray set released by Universal in England (which is 1080/50i and, unfortunately, suffers from inaccurate black levels).

The Last Panthers opens with a diamond robbery in Marseilles that director Johan Renck has described as "misdirection", because solving the crime quickly becomes secondary to other concerns. Still, the heist is an effectively staged introduction to the world of the series. It's efficient, brutal and precise. The gunmen don't even bother to cover their faces, and they deter the police response with shock tactics derived from urban warfare. But something goes wrong during their escape, and a bystander is killed, triggering a cascade of consequences.

Three different characters are caught up in the robbery's aftermath. Each of them has a troubled past, which their involvement with the diamond theft forces them to revisit and try to resolve. An English woman, Naomi Franckom (Samantha Morton, Minority Report), is an insurance investigator for the London-based firm that will have to pay out 15 million euros if the diamonds are not recovered. Twenty years ago, Naomi was a member of a U.N. peacekeeping detail assigned to Serbia at the height of its sectarian strife. Her experiences in that war zone have left her emotionally scarred, and she declines the Marseilles assignment as soon as she recognizes the Panther style, with its Serbian connection. When Naomi's boss, Tom Kendle (John Hurt), insists that she handle the case, Naomi reluctantly proceeds but finds herself sucked backward in time to a past she has labored to forget.

In Marseilles, a French police detective named Khalil Rachedi (Tahar Rahim, A Prophet) seizes the lead of the robbery investigation, but he has a personal agenda. The son of Algerian immigrants, Khalil grew up in a public housing project called Les Agnettes, where cops fear to go and immigrant teens are recruited into criminal gangs. Rescued by the intervention of his stern father, who sent him to live in the country, Khalil has returned to Marseilles determined to clean up Les Agnettes, whatever the cost. The diamond theft provides him with an opportunity, when the guns used by the thieves are traced back to the gang controlling the housing project. Khalil's focus now shifts from recovering the diamonds to dismantling the gang. His quest reunites him with his younger brother, Mokhtar (Kamel Labroudi), who has remained at Les Agnettes and embraced the life of crime that Khalil rejected, thereby making himself an outcast from the family. The tense collaboration between the brothers eventually produces results, but the cost is greater than either of them could have imagined.

The third character whose story winds through The Last Panthers is Milan Celik (Goran Bogdan), a Croatian who led the crew of diamond thieves. Although Milan bears the tiger tattoo on his chest signifying Panther membership, he has left the Panthers. The robbery was an independent operation in which Milan participated so that he can pay medical bills for his ailing brother, Addy (Nikola Rakocevic). Milan's efforts to sell the stolen gems will lead him back to his former associates in Belgrade, where the remaining Panther organization is wracked by internal struggle. The acting head of the gang, Zlatko (Igor Bencina), is a friend of Milan's from childhood, who wants to reposition the Panthers as a legitimate business (much like Michael Corleone in the later chapters of The Godfather). Zlatko's ambition puts him in conflict with Dragan (Boris Isakovic), the Panthers' official boss, who recruited both Milan and Zlatko as teenagers and is now serving a prison sentence in France. Caught between these opposing forces, Milan is confronted with impossible choices, with his brother's life hanging in the balance.

As these three characters pursue their separate objectives, The Last Panthers descends into a murky world of moral ambiguity, where the boundaries between crime and business are erased and yesterday's enemies become today's partners (and vice versa). Serbia, a nation once synonymous with hopeless chaos, now aspires to respectability and EU membership, dangling lucrative investment opportunities before multi-national business consortiums. The largest involves an international airport at Belgrade, which will generate billions from construction, security services and insurance policies. The project unites a peculiar combination of the Serbian gang leader, Zlatko, who wants the security contract; the British insurance broker, Kendle, who wants the broker's fees; a Dutch builder named van Reeth (David Dencik), who wants a kickback in return for his participation; and a conniving local politician, Soscik (Gordan Kicic), who sees himself as the new image of Serbia. In the face of such grandiose maneuvers, the Marseilles heist becomes a footnote, and individual quests for redemption are pushed aside.

The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Last Panthers was shot digitally by French cinematographer Laurent Tangy (The Connection). In the Blu-ray extras, director Johan Renck explains why he opted to photograph the series in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio more commonly seen in theaters, but sometimes used by TV and commercial directors as a stylistic device. Universal's U.K. Blu-ray release retained this framing, but Acorn Media offers the version broadcast by SundanceTV, which cropped the image at both sides to fill the entire 1.78:1 HDTV screen.

Thanks to the generosity of a Blu-ray.com member, I have been able to provide several captures comparing Acorn's version to the original (screenshots 6-11), but those only hint at the severity of the changes. The cropping performed by Sundance was blunt and direct, dropping a 1.78:1 box over the center of the widescreen frame and lopping off whatever fell outside the box. No effort was applied to pan-and-scan the image or to reframe selectively on a shot-by-shot basis. The resulting presentation is amateurish even by the old standards of VHS. In scene after scene, figures and faces are cut off by the edge of the frame, headroom is excessive and composition is unbalanced. Renck likes to emphasize conflict by placing characters at opposite sides of the frame. He often shoots groups in medium shots that array them across the screen. Sometimes he situates a character in a vast, empty space to emphasize their isolation. All of these effects (and more) are noticeably compromised on Acorn's Blu-ray release. If you're at all sensitive to shot composition, the problem is obvious even without comparing Acorn's version to the original presentation.

It is worth noting that Acorn has previously released New Worlds, another TV series shot and broadcast in widescreen, in its original aspect ratio, without cropping or reframing.

On the plus side, the image on Acorn's two 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-rays features accurate black levels, whereas Universal's release is overbrightened with washed-out blacks. Acorn's release appears to accurately replicate The Last Panthers' intended palette, which is desaturated with almost no bright colors. Pale washes of green, yellow, brown or blue often tint larger portions of the frame for effect. The many flashback sequences to past events in the characters' lives have been desaturated to the point where they are almost black-and-white (or, more accurately, brown-and-white, which creates a dingy look). The flashbacks have also been "distressed" in post-production to add noise and subtract detail. In the present-day sequences, however, the image retains the detail and sharpness commonly associated with digital capture, with occasional scenes made deliberately dark and indistinct to create suspense.

Acorn has mastered The Last Panthers with an average bitrate of 27.94 and a solid encode, but even the finest mastering can't make up for the use of a compromised source. The video score reflects this essential flaw.

The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Last Panthers arrives with a 5.1 sound mix, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA, which is effective but low-key. The big action scenes, of which there are only a handful, register with sufficient impact to support the drama. Surrounds are limited to environmental ambiance. The English and French dialogue is clearly rendered, and I assume, by extension, that the same holds true for the Serbian exchanges. (The disc defaults to English subtitles for French and Serbian.) The moody underscore is the first effort by a composer known only as "Clark". The dirge-like theme that plays over the opening titles is "Blackstar", a track from David Bowie's final album.

The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras can be found on disc 2. Note that the many clips from the series are presented in its original widescreen format, not the cropped version that appears on the disc.

• A World of Crime (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:08): The series' producers and writers describe the origin and sources of the story.



• The Director's Vision (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:20): Director Renck discusses his vision for the series and his directing style.



• Executing a Heist (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:23): Renck and others discuss the style of the opening sequence, including the "pink paint" assault.



• The Cop, The Thief and the Insurance Investigator (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:58): Rahim, Morton and Bogdan discuss their roles, with comments from Renck, John Hurt and writer Jack Thorne.



• The Real Pink Panthers (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:05): A short history of the real gang that inspired the series.



• Photo Gallery (1080p; 1.78:1; 1:29): A slideshow of production stills.



• Introductory Trailers: At startup, disc 1 plays trailers for Acorn TV, The Driver and The Code, which can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

The Last Panthers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Last Panthers is an interesting and thought-provoking entertainment, but I cannot recommend the compromised version released by Acorn Media. The Universal release features the correct aspect ratio with inaccurate blacks (and also requires hardware capable of playing back 1080/50i content). Until a better release comes along, viewers will have to choose their poison.