6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
An American sharpshooter is trapped in a standoff with an Iraqi sniper.
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith NakliWar | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
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
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
In case you haven’t been paying attention for the past year and a half, our body politic has been rife with discussions about construction of a border obstacle, so perhaps it should be stated at the outset that The Wall is not about that structure. Instead The Wall deals with a ramshackle ruin in the middle of the Iraqi desert, some vestige of a larger building that sits forlorn in the vast dusty expanse, seemingly delimiting the infinite. The film’s titular barrier turns out to be a refuge of sorts for Sergeant Allen Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a “spotter” for sharpshooter Staff Sergeant Shane Matthews (John Cena). The two Army buddies are on an outcropping above the wall, where a number of deceased individuals lay in place, testament to the aiming skill of an infamous Iraqi who is only known by the code name Juba. The two guys are trying to figure out if there are still any Iraqi operatives hiding out at the scene, and after 22 hours of absolutely nothing happening, they decide there isn’t. Big mistake. When Matthews decides to throw caution to the siroccos (so to speak) and journey down to examine the site up close and personal, perhaps none too surprisingly he’s almost immediately taken out by a bullet coming from some unseen location. Isaac, who goes by the nickname Ize, rushes out himself to help his partner, at which point he’s hit, too. Ize manages to haul himself behind the wall, the only thing in the area that can offer even the hint of protection. Badly wounded himself and already certain that Matthews has met his maker, Ize is literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the rest of the film plays out with Ize strategizing how to get out of an untenable situation. The Wall was unavoidably reminiscent to me of another film I reviewed recently, the Armie Hammer war thriller Mine, which found that film’s hero sharpshooter stranded in the middle of the desert with his foot on a mine, forced to stand and/or crouch there for days as he devolved into a kind of lucid dreaming state. Ize at least can move a little bit, but both films want to allegorize America’s involvement in long running conflicts by positing soldiers who are quite literally stuck in a quagmire, that is if quagmires can exist in the desert.
The Wall is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Unless I'm not remembering an older title, I believe this may be the first transfer I've reviewed that is culled from a 16mm source with a 4K DI, and the results are rather interesting. The palette has been blanched throughout the presentation, with color stripped away to suggest the hot, dusty environment, and as such the only real pops of color are the occasionally gruesome looks at various injuries. The incredible brightness of many scenes can give an almost hallucinatory ambience at times (see screenshot 17), but generally speaking detail levels are rather high, especially in the many close-ups that are employed (see screenshot 3). Grain is fairly thick a lot of the time, as should be expected, and that, along with sometimes variable clarity, can slightly diminish fine detail at various moments. Despite the prevalence of really bright lighting situations, there are no issues with banding or other compression anomalies.
The Wall delivers some nuanced surround activity in its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track courtesy of things like the windstorms that blow through the desert, but this isn't a slam bang, action adventure outing that offers "wow" sonics. A lot of the film is actually fairly quiet, with Ize engaging in near metaphysical discussions with his unseen assailant. That part of the film's sound design is always delivered cleanly and clearly, with excellent fidelity and good prioritization.
The Wall encounters a few obstacles itself, but it's an arguably more satisfying enterprise than the somewhat similar Mine, though the trade off here is philosophizing in the place of that other film's tendency to wallow in navel gazing. Liman keeps things surprisingly varied from a visual standpoint despite being anchored at the titular edifice, and Taylor-Johnson does what he can with a basically one note reactive character. Technical merits are strong (and visually extremely interesting), and with caveats noted, The Wall comes Recommended.
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