Blu-ray Movie Reviews

A small-time crook takes on a bank heist when an old friend offers him an inside track to the vault. Along with his hastily assembled team of low-rung criminals Terry finds himself deep into this real-life heist and quite suddenly the target of ruthless mobsters the police government officials at the highest level and even the royal family

Jason Stathom has been churning out movie after movie lately. Thankfully this one was a bit of a departure from his tough guy persona. The film is based on the true story of a group of guys that were duped into robbing a bank that contained some racy pictures of a royal that were being used as a bargaining chip for a big time, drug dealing revolutionary. While the film doesn’t have the style and whit of Snatch it was still a really fun ride and one of the more enjoyable films I’ve seen recently.

Lionsgate has delivered a stunning HD presentation for this one that is razor sharp. The image has an incredible sense of dimension and depth and fine object detail is as good as anything I’ve seen on Blu-ray. This film was shot with a digital camera and the results are a striking image that is completely devoid of noise and retains a very polished look. The subtle stylizing boosts contrast a bit but this only adds to the depth of the image. Colors lean a bit toward yellow to give the film an aged look. This gives the image a dated look to coincide with the films of the 70’s and overall it works well. Fans of the detail and smoothness of digital photography will eat this one up.

The 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack is also quite the treat. The rear channels add quite a bit to the open air quality of the mix and make it a far more immersive experience than I was expecting. Dynamics from the score and sound design are impressive and I loved the low end touches throughout the presentation. Dialogue can be a bit low at times compared to the rest of the mix, but this is rarely a distraction. The soundtrack as a whole has incredible imaging that is never tied down by the speakers and offers an immersive quality that is rare even for Blu-ray. A spectacular presentation in every regard on this one.

Extras include a feature commentary with the members of the cast and crew along with a production feature that includes interviews and an insight into the events. You also have an in-depth look at the real events in a featurette. The trailer and some deleted scenes are also included. The second disc contains a digital copy of the feature film for use on a PC or Mac.

This has been one of the more enjoyable films of this last year and Lionsgate has delivered an outstanding A/V presentation for it. Highly recommended.