Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie Review

Will this disc be a welcome addition to the Blu-ray collection?

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 3, 2011

I'm nobody's little girl.

Welcome to the Rileys is a film about doing good in the wake of something bad, about finding a purpose in life when life seems to have made itself purposeless. It's a story of overcoming the odds with the help of an out-of-nowhere guardian angel, which, of course, are the best kind, the kind that find it in their hearts to help someone in need not for money or for the camera but out of a sense of humanity, a sense of purpose, a sense of doing good for the sake of doing good, not because it's been labeled as "the right thing to do" or because of some external coercion. It's about turning life's negatives into positives, about not reclaiming, reshaping, or canceling out the past but making sure that the past, no matter how unforgiving, can in some way make things better in the future. It's about big hearts, patience, acceptance, seeing the inner positives through the worldly negatives and the inner potential through even the nearly impenetrable veil of worldly failure. Welcome to the Rileys is, yes, a story about welcoming a wayward soul into the hearts and lives of a couple who are themselves struggling not through physical decay but rather emotional and spiritual loss, the two opposites coming together in search of that something that might make lives more complete and fulfilling because of a smile, a gift, an understanding that most of the world would rather not offer. It's about nurturing when society sees only a lost cause, about growth of the heart and soul when they appear withered and not much longer for this Earth. It's about tenderness and forgiveness, but most of all, it's about living even in the face of physical death, emotional death, and figurative death.

Welcome back to life.

Doug (James Gandolfini, "The Sopranos") and Lois (Melissa Leo, Frozen River) are a married couple struggling with the recent loss of their teenaged daughter. They've drifted apart since the death, Lois refusing to leave the house and Doug escaping into the arms of a local waitress. Doug still loves his wife, but her distance is pushing him away and the marriage is on the brink. Doug leaves Indiana for a business conference in New Orleans. There, he meets a young stripper named Mallory (Kristen Stewart, Twilight) who's lost her way. She lives in a run-down house, incessantly uses foul language, and lives only to sell her body for the gratification of others. Doug finds himself instantly attracted to Mallory, not physically, but emotionally. He succumbs to the urge to do everything in his power to dig her out of the hole she's in, making her a surrogate daughter of sorts. As their relationship blossoms, Doug decides to stay on with Mallory rather than return home. He sees a glimmer of hope for Mallory's future and he takes every action he can to shape her into the young woman she deserves to be, but will his fixation on Mallory be the final straw in ending his already tenuous marriage?

For all the good it has to offer and the positive and uplifting message it finds, Welcome to the Rileys is nevertheless a semi-frustrating movie not for its themes but for its inability to really tug on the heartstrings and dig deep into the hearts and souls of its audience, to make the characters's lives as meaningful as if they were family. It's a heartfelt movie without a lot of heart; it's superficially well-made and well-meaning, but it somehow just can't find that deep-rooted feel-good lifeblood that should really be at the center of these sorts of movies. The story is undeniably touching and oftentimes brutally honest; even through the prism of a few light moments, the film is plays as a fairly serious Drama that fortunately doesn't reach the sappiness of the most sacharine of fare, but it's still disappointingly absent a more tearjerking core, the film somehow managing to play only around the periphery of the heartstrings rather than strum them like the best of these sorts of films are capable of doing. Even viewers who normally fall head over heels and break down into a big pile of mush over things like this (ahem) might be surprised at how the film can somehow -- and disappointingly so -- manage to build such a tender and well-meaning story with great characters but somehow end up rather hollow where it really counts.

Welcome to the Rileys plays with a first-rate story that sees characters rescued from the brink of disaster, and even without that last little push over the top to make itself into one of the great Dramas of personal salvation, the film still works for its solid grounding in core values and excellent acting from its lead characters. Welcome to the Rileys, if nothing else, is a must-see movie about man's ability to cope with tragedy and find a way to mold life's negatives into greater positives. The old saying says something about the Lord working in mysterious ways, and Welcome to the Rileys plays on that theme at its very center as characters overcome various personal, psychological, and physical deficiencies out of a sense of purpose, not selfish purpose but selfless purpose, purpose even at the risk of a marriage, of money, and time. Life, the film seems to say, is greater than all of these things, and love -- not just romantic love but love that comes from deep in the gut and all the way up to the farthest reaches of the mind and back on down into the soul -- is the blood that makes life possible. The film's cast is exemplary; James Gandolfini carries himself like Tony Soprano but he's not Tony Soprano in Welcome to the Rileys; despite a questionable accent, the veteran actor provides a commanding performance as a man on a mission to save a life and, at the same time, rescue his own from the brink. He foregoes everything and risks an already tenuous marriage to do what his heart tells him is right, to follow that little voice that's so critical in shaping a life and pushing and prodding listeners in the right direction. Kristen Stewart is also fantastic at playing the rough, abandoned, and on the verge prostitute; she gives a convincing and emotionally-charged performance as a girl who's so lost that she can't, at first, see help even when it's two feet in front of her. Welcome to the Rileys, in fact, plays like an alternate version of Pretty Woman in that it eliminates that fairy tale façade in favor of a more gritty and realistic tone that tells a similar story but from a more down to earth, tangible, and approachable real-life feel.

Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Welcome to the Rileys delivers a nearly pristine 1080p transfer that's reflective of the typical Sony output. The image features fine color balance, strong detailing, and a crisp, film-like texture that's accentuated by a native layer of film grain. Rarely does the transfer fail to yield pinpoint details; facial closeups excel, and fine object detail is wonderful throughout, whether the creases in an old leather chair or the wear-and-tear visible around Mallory's small home. Colors are neutral and the film doesn't lean towards a faded texture or an overly warm feel, and every hue is delivered accurately throughout the movie, regardless of lighting conditions. Black levels and flesh tones hover around perfection. The image does fluctuate a bit between looking unnaturally flat and sporting excellent depth for a 2D image. The print is immaculately clean, as is to be expected of a brand new release fresh from theaters. Welcome to the Rileys isn't a movie built for eye candy; the image is somewhat nondescript by its very nature, but Sony's transfer appears very faithful to the source and makes for a wonderful example of how Blu-ray can yield a great-looking image even for a movie that's not unique in its visual structure.

Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Welcome to the Rileys features a steady but generally unspectacular DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack. That's not a knock on Sony's audio presentation but merely a reflection of what is a fairly straightforward and generally bland sound design. Much like the film's pedestrian visual scheme, the audio is handled as well as can be expected given that there's really nothing of note going on. Most of the track is located up front, and even more, it seems, straight up the middle. Listeners will note some very subtle ambience in places -- the buzzing of overhead fluorescent lights, a rope knocking up against a flagpole -- that are small details but that add some much-needed support that manage to sound quite real for as inconsequential as they may be. Things spring to life in chapter four with some appropriately sloppy bass that helps set the mood inside the smoky and low-lit strip club. Otherwise, this one's primarily all about dialogue, and Sony's track handles the spoken word like a champion. It won't wow any listeners with power and an overload of directional effects, but this is a steady and pleasant soundtrack that does all it needs to do in support of what is a talk-heavy picture.

Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Fans are sure to be disappointed with this minuscule assortment of extras; Welcome to the Rileys contains but a single featurette.

• Creating the Rileys (1080p, 11:08): A typical making-of piece features cast and crew covering the origins of the project, the meaning of the story, the casting process, the work of Director Jake Scott, and filming in New Orleans.
• Previews: Additional Sony titles.
• BD-Live.

Welcome to the Rileys Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Welcome to the Rileys isn't quite where it needs to be. Make no mistake, this is still a first-class film with a critically important message on the life-changing positives of acceptance, understanding, charity, and love in a world where people seem to have been reduced to things and those struggling on the bottom rung of the ladder seem like faceless nothings, people whose pains and misfortunes go unnoticed, blurs in a fast-paced world where the scramble to the top has lessened the importance of building a winning soul. Unfortunately, there's just not enough emotion here, at least of the real, honest-to-goodness heart-wrenching kind. It's not for a lack of effort or poorly-drawn characters that the film isn't quite where it needs to be, but instead the absence of some intangible, whatever that may be, that sees the film play with purpose but not with all that much heart. Still, this is a fine movie that's well worth watching; it just could have been a lot more. Sony's Blu-ray release lacks much in the way of extras, but the studio has still seen fit to provide another first-rate technical presentation. Despite some misgivings, Welcome to the Rileys nevertheless comes recommended.