Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie Review

"Dear diary: when will they stop releasing derivative garbage?"

Reviewed by Martin Liebman July 11, 2016

Entertainment in all forms is being spewed onto the marketplace at an alarming rate. Everyone has their idea of the next great whatever: movie, TV show, video game, book. Precious few would-be artists stumble onto the opportunity to prove that their idea really is, more than likely, nothing special, and only a small fraction of those who get the chance ultimately prove their work viable, sustainable, profitable, and/or worthwhile. Vigilante Diaries is just the latest in an increasingly deep cesspool of cinematic garbage of failed concepts built on the backs of better works. Harsh? Maybe. But nobody can say with a straight face that movie-world isn't absolutely saturated to a breaking point with trash. "Disposable cinema" is perhaps a good term for it. The Direct-to-video Action movie marketplace seems a particularly thriving dumping ground for every bad, overcooked, copycat idea people have in their heads. Director Christian Sesma, who co-wrote with Paul Sloan, has assembled an interesting cast in an otherwise throwaway movie with about as much redeeming value as lunch at McDonalds. Out of the dumpster from the back. After a soaking rainstorm. Yanking it away from a hungry dog. With rabies.

The man known as "The Vigilante" (Paul Sloan, channeling his best Christian Bale meets WWE's Triple H persona) has disappeared. In his absence, crime has risen 40%. His heroics made the world a safer place, but it wasn't until a go-getter filmmaker named Michael Hanover (Jason Mewes) captured his blood-spilling, bad guy-killing work, uploaded it to the Internet, and made both of them web celebs. Turns out The Vigilante has been taken prisoner by a man seeking revenge for his brother's death, a man whom The Vigilante previously killed for wrongdoing. A crack team of experts is assembled to save the hero, who in turn must save a few others, a city, the world, maybe, before it's too late, and so on and so forth.

The movie's plot seems almost inconsequential. Style is king and, unfortunately for Vigilante Diaries, style is of the overdone and under realized variety. The film has "Tarantino ripoff" written all over it. Dialogue that the filmmakers hoped would play as "edgy" or "trendy" just comes off as trying too hard. Action is stale and poorly choreographed. The plot is all over the place, literally as the action shifts to Europe at some point later in the film. Characters lack substance, and most of them seem to be one-shot gimmick caricatures. The movie is overlong by a good 20-30 minutes; there's just not enough depth to carry it, not enough reason given for the audience to care. This seems all about shoveling content onto the marketplace, not crafting a movie with any kind of identifiable substance. There's apparently a market for this -- plenty of other movies just like this one sit on this reviewer's overcrowded shelves gathering dust -- but one cannot help but think that the shallow and derivative DTV Action movie market sits on the verge of collapse. The Vigilante Diaries may be the release that broke the reviewer's will, not to mention the overstuffed shelf on which it will sit in perpetuity.

Most of the movie's shortcomings beyond its script, looking from the outside in, seem to stem from a budget used to hire a stable of name actors to appear in the movie. And for the most part, they prove the old adage about polishing a turd true. Jason Mewes, for instance, narrates the movie with enthusiasm but the cadence and flair of a middle school boy recounting his latest adventures in Call of Duty. His on-screen performance is a little more balanced, capturing that goofy tongue-in-cheek vibe for which the movie seems to be aiming and for which the character seems to be written. The venerable Michael Madsen, who probably felt like he was in some weird Twilight Zone time warp traveling back to when he made Reservoir Dogs, except in a dimension where the movie stinks, acts like he doesn't even care about the substance of what he's saying. That he looks cool -- that he looks like Michael Madsen spitting out trendy dialogue -- seems the only requirement for the part. Michael Jai White is the only member of the cast who seems, if not capable of, at least willing to try to, polish that proverbial turd. Maybe he's just so slick and cool he transcends even junk like this, but he's a joy to watch in the movie, and it's too bad he doesn't have an even bigger role than he does. The rest of the cast is forgettable, falling into one of two categories: gun wielders and tight dress wearers. At least the eye candy isn't half-bad.

Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Vigilante Diaries features the now-standard DTV digitally shot source. The image is meticulously clean, save for spiking noise -- to severity on a few occasions -- in lower light conditions. Otherwise, Anchor Bay's transfer benefits from the source's exceptional clarity. Detail is always impressive whether considering thicker military style gear, Michael Jai White's finer dress wear, etching on firearms ("HK," "Kriss-Vector"), rougher façades in Fallujah, and bloodied, sweaty faces, often with a good bit of intimate and complex pore and facial hair definition to boot. Colors are well saturated but never appear overcooked. Black levels occasionally struggle to refrain from crush. Flesh tones appear accurate. Beyond the noise, no major unwanted anomalies appear present in sufficient quantity to mention.

Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Anchor Bay's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack supports Vigilante Diaries well enough. Action comes impressively staged. Bullets pop and slam from every speaker. Explosions yield positive concussive bass. Surrounds are regularly utilized for greater immersion into gun battles and other bits of chaos. Drones and choppers zoom overhead in the early Iraq sequence. General ambience heightens when necessary, particularly later on in the movie on the streets of London and background chatter at a restaurant a few minutes later. Dialogue presentation is fine, with natural clarity and center placement.

Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Vigilante Diaries contains one extra. 'Vigilante Diaries:' Behind the Scenes (1080p, 7:27) features cast and crew discussing the origins of the film, the characters, the style of the film, filming locations and sets, and themes within the film.

Vigilante Diaries Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Vigilante Diaries is not only a bad movie, it epitomizes so much of what's wrong with today's entertainment landscape, particularly the lower rungs thereof. Awful writing, poor execution, no substance, little if any identifiable rhythm or plot, and a movie that's been made because, well, who knows why. Seriously, this bubble has to be on the verge or bursting, right? Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of Vigilante Diaries at least delivers the obligatory high yield video and audio presentations. Unsurprisingly, supplements are limited to a single fluff piece. Skip it. Most movie watchers have probably seen this fifty times already, just with a different name slapped on the box.