Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.5

Vanquish Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 3, 2021

Those with long memories may remember one of the first pain relievers to combine aspirin with acetaminophen and caffeine was called Vanquish, and though I don’t think that particular brand name is still widely available (at least on this side of the pond), viewers thinking of watching this film with the same name as that long ago analgesic may want to swallow a handful of other products with a similar formulation as a prophylactic measure before indulging in what is really a surprisingly messy production. Evidently even actors of the general stature of Morgan Freeman have bills to pay, since that seems to be the only rational explanation as to why Freeman would want to be part of a story that has him consigned to a wheelchair as a veritable Ironside, although in this version of a handicapped detective, the character he plays, a former policeman named Damon, is not exactly above reproach, despite the hoary trope of a series of laudatory newspaper headlines trumpeting his career playing out under the opening credits. An opening vignette with Damon in a confessional seems to suggest he’s been taking drug running money for umpteen years (as has perhaps the priest hearing the confession), though as with so much else in Vanquish, there are veritable acres of unexplained material left for the enterprising viewer to figure out.

While Vanquish never discloses where it's supposedly taking place, inquiring minds in whatever town the film is supposed to feature might wonder how a beat policeman ended up with an insanely luxe mansion like the one Damon has, but maybe that burg has no muckraking journalists seeking to make their name by exposing the underbelly of an ostensible hero. Instead, the town is stuffed full of villainous drug runners who have bags of loot that Damon evidently feels are rightfully his. Luckily for him, he sometime previously rescued a Russian drug courier named Victoria (Ruby Rose) and has employed her as his (extremely unlikely) housekeeper. You might think that Victoria would be more than happy to help her protector and mentor, especially since, in yet another ludicrously clichéd plot element, Victoria's sweet daughter Lily (Juju Journey Brenner) has one of those life threatening diseases that regularly afflicts cinematic children, and Damon obviously has the resources to help. Instead, Vanquish just throws whatever shreds of credibility it had managed to cling on to by having Damon more or less take Lily hostage and threaten Victoria into using her "particular set of skills" to take out a litany of bad guys.

It's all almost preposterously far fetched, and if it had been played with a sly wink or two, it actually might have worked, but director George Gallo seems to think he's making the latest John Wick film, drenching the palette in almost posterized purples and greens (as can pretty easily be seen in many of the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review), but without any of the flair the Reeves films showed in terms of either narrative flow or (especially) staging of the action sequences. If Vanquish seems designed to evoke John Wick in some of its presentational aspects, the underlying plot conceit of a marauding female assassin may bring to mind any number of films from La Femme Nikita to Red Sparrow, but unfortunately Rose simply doesn't have the same stage presence as either Anne Parillaud or Jennifer Lawrence. Even that gaping deficit might have been bridged had Freeman invested his performance with a little more vigor, but he seems resolutely detached from the proceedings a lot of the time.

There are a number of frankly odd presentational and/or structural (in cinema terms) aspects to Vanquish, aside and apart from any peculiarities in the at times ridiculous plot. Those include notable references toward Christian iconography, at least in the early going, which are dropped pretty much as soon as they're introduced, and, even weirder (at least to my eyes), a really anachronistic use of dissolves. Traditional filmmaking "grammar" can typically use dissolves to indicate either changes in location or the span of time, but here they're repeatedly offered just kind of mid-scene, for no particular reason and as a result call attention to themselves the more they occur.

Kind of interestingly, if perhaps unbelievably, one of the nooks and crannies of the IMDb discloses that Samuel Bartlett, credited here with coming up with the story and co-writing the actual screenplay, won something called the Page International Screenwriting Award in 2014 for Best Thriller/Horror Script for what I'm assuming was the first draft of this. There are a couple of quandaries raised by that award, the first of which is that it was handed out in 2014, and yet this film didn't show up until 2021, and then only after director George Gallo got the other co-writer credit for the screenplay. The second, and perhaps more pressing, issue is that Vanquish lacks any ostensible "thrills" and arguably the only "horror" it offers is the sight of the venerable Morgan Freeman in "paycheck retrieval" mode.

Vanquish Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vanquish is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. The IMDb kind of weirdly lists Arri cameras but then reference Redcode RAW (including at a source resolution of 8K), so I'm assuming maybe this is a hybrid entry in terms of the technologies utilized to capture its imagery. I will say that the astounding saturation and generally decent if at times just slightly murky dim sequences struck me as more "Red-like" than "Arri-like". As can readily be seen in the screenshots accompanying this review, and as I also mentioned above in the main body of the review, stylistically things are very much in the John Wick mold, with purples and greens predominating, but with regular visits to slightly cooler blue tones. Director Gallo and cinematographer Anastos Michos utilize all sorts of tweaks to the imagery, including near hallucinatory moments, as can be seen in screenshots 6, 18 and 19. Those stylistic quirks combined with an often deeply saturated palette can lead to flirtations with posterizing, with slight blotches of color kind of liquefying in isolated sections of the frame.

Vanquish Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Vanquish features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that expectedly springs to pretty vigorous life when Victoria is tooling around on her motorcycle, as well as when the body count begins to accrue due to repeated gunfire. A pulsing score by Aldo Shllaku also ripples out through the surround channels invitingly. Dialogue (such as it is) is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout the presentation. Optional subtitles in several languages are available, and in that regard, this is kind of interestingly one of the few Lionsgate Blu-ray releases I've personally reviewed which includes Brazilian Portuguese subtitles, which makes me wonder if someone connected to this film either has a Brazilian connection or following.

Vanquish Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Director Commentary


• Trailer (HD; 2:24)

Additionally, a digital copy is also included.

Vanquish Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ruby Rose also played a tough, no nonsense sort in the relatively recently reviewed The Doorman, and if she once again acquits herself at least reasonably well in the action scenes, this is another entry that either doesn't know how to capitalize on whatever acting chops she can bring to a production, or alternatively is so poorly written that Rose simply can't bring any acting chops to the production. Technical merits are solid for those who are considering a purchase.