6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
A man looks to find a way to escape the criminal ways of his outlaw family.
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, Lyndsey Marshal, Georgie Smith, Rory KinnearDrama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Action | 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 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 | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Adam Smith is one of those generic sounding names that has nonetheless become famous in a number of different contexts. The most famous Adam Smith is probably the 18th century economist and so-called “moral philosopher”, one of the prime movers of the Scottish Enlightenment. A couple of centuries after this particular Adam Smith rose to renown, another economist, George Goodman, adopted the pseudonym of Adam Smith for an unlikely bestseller called The Money Game, a book about economics which rather unexpectedly became a publishing phenomenon in the late 1960s. A number of other well known Adam Smiths have propagated over the years, including a rather ungainly number of professional athletes. It may be too soon to know whether or not Trespass Against Us director Adam Smith will rise to the top of this rather exclusive group, but if one believes Box Office Mojo’s report that Trespass Against Us “raked in” a feeble $5,711 in box office receipts, one would assume a tractate on economics is probably not forthcoming from this particular bearer of this well known name. Trespass Against Us has some interesting elements, and it features committed performances by Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson as father and son (kinda sorta like their relationship in Assassin's Creed), but either due to inadequacies in the screenplay by Alastair Siddons or Smith’s inability to shape the material effectively, Trespass Against Us may in fact find it hard to find audience members willing to completely forgive some of its transgressions.
Trespass Against Us is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. It's getting to be a kind of rare jolt to see "Kodak film" listed in the closing credits, but Trespass Against Us was indeed shot on 35mm with (according to the IMDb) the lesser utilized Aaton Penelope and perhaps more recognizable Arricam LT. This has a really nice "thick" texture at times that supports the film's gritty setting and often literally dirty characters. Stationary shots are nicely detailed if not sharp in the contemporary (digital capture) sense, but the prevalent use of "jiggly cam" tends to add at least the perception of softness to some of the more manic sequences. The palette varies from very naturalistic looking (albeit kind of dusty and drab at times) to obviously graded, sometimes rather effectively so, as in a later sequence that sees Chad bathed in tones of purple. Scenes like that, as well as some nighttime material, can show minor deficits in fine detail levels.
Trespass Against Us features a sometimes rather boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix, as in the opening sequence with the car roaring through a field, or, later, another scene with a car having an even more serious collision than the one that ends that opening sequence. Otherwise, though, the film plays out in smaller scale, although often quite intense, dialogue scenes, where a lot whatever surround activity there is comes courtesy of stray ambient environmental effects or some of the score choices by The Chemical Brothers. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range quite wide on this problem free track.
I frankly didn't know quite what to make of Trespass Against Us. The film's loosey-goosey opening scenes made me feel like things were almost being played for laughs, but then the angstly, "kitchen sink drama" (albeit a kitchen sink in a trailer) aspects started to kick in, along with some "artier" elements (like a surplus of bird imagery), not always to meaningful effect. There's the core of a fascinating film here, for this kind of "Irish traveler" community hasn't really been exploited on film before, at least not like this (to my knowledge, anyway). The two lead performances are fantastic, but the film's supporting cast has a few too many eccentrics to ever ground the story in an environment that feels totally real. Technical merits are strong for those considering a purchase.
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