5.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Veteran race car driver Sam Munroe and his son, a fellow driver from a small town overcome family and professional conflicts, balancing competition, ego, resentment and a racing nemesis to come out stronger on the other side.
Starring: John Travolta, Shania Twain, Toby Sebastian, Rosabell Laurenti Sellers, Michael MadsenSport | 100% |
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
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Is it possible that Trading Paint is actually a sneaky parody in the vein of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby? The answer to that hopefully obviously cheeky query is (probably?) an unmitigated “no”, but for those with a certain jaded sense of humor, Trading Paint may still provide an unintentional giggle or two. In what has become an almost unending litany of either lackluster “actual” film releases, or (more likely) straight to video offerings, John Travolta is back as Sam Munroe, an erstwhile racing champ who is managing his son Cam (Toby Sebastian), who is attempting to forge his own racing career. There may be no one named Ricky Bobby in this enterprise, but the film does in fact play out in Talladega, and both the opening sequence and some later race scenes do at least an adequate job of depicting what life is like in a smallish southern town where racing can be the locals' version of Friday Night Lights . The kind of overamped announcement crew mentions in this sequence (and indeed later) about a long running rivalry between Sam and the eventual winner of this particular race, Linsky (Michael Madsen), and the entire film revolves around this supposed decades long feud, except — the film never really addresses the cause of the dysfunction. Like so much else in Trading Paint, it’s simply plopped down, with the audience forced to accept it as is.
Trading Paint is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This is yet another offering where the IMDb offers next to no technical data, and I haven't been able to dig up even one word on the production side of things on the internet. I'm a bit hesitant to guess about the technologies employed here, since there are scenes that look a good deal "grittier" than others, with either real or digital grain, and then others which look much more like traditional digital capture. In any case, this is another presentation that offers excellent detail levels when lighting conditions allow. Quite a bit of the film takes place in some pretty dark environments, including racetracks at night or the inside of Sam's home, and those moments can be a bit hazy looking (the race footage in particular is kind of haphazard, probably by design, with lots of "jiggly cam" that tends to prevent fine detail from being able to really register). In brightly lit moments, as in a rather nice scene featuring Sam and Becca fishing by an incredibly scenic lake, the palette pops impressively and both general detail and fine detail levels look precise.
Trading Paint's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is quite energetic in its racing element, with excellent panning effects and some good rumbly LFE. The surge of crowd cheers and intermittent chatter by either the announcers or characters actually engaging in dialogue are presented with good directionality and realistic immersion. The jangly, country-esque score is often winning (Twain contributes nothing, for those who are interested), and both source cues and underscore also fill the surround channels nicely. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly without any issues whatsoever.
The only "supplements" on this disc are trailers for other Lionsgate releases (including Travolta's similarly lackluster Speed Kills). I personally don't consider marketing tools for unrelated films "scoreable" extras.
Trading Paint is kind of sadly yet another middling effort from Travolta (who also co-produced). The story has been seen in countless iterations before, but the kind of hardscrabble use of dirt track racing gives this film at least a little distinctive flavor. Kind of interestingly, this was a Spanish-U.S. co-production, filmed in Alabama, a state that is experiencing a film industry backlash as this review is going live due to recent legislation involving abortion rights, so this may be one of the last shoots in the state, at least for a while. Even diehard Travolta fans may well be bored silly by most of this outing, but for those who are considering a purchase, technical merits (especially audio) are solid.
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