Blu-ray Movie Reviews

His life changed history. His courage changed lives. Academy Award(R) winner Sean Penn stars in this stirring celebration of Harvey Milk, a true man of the people. Based on the inspiring true story of the first openly gay man elected to major public office, this compelling film follows Milk's powerful journey to inspire hope for equal rights during one of the least tolerant times in our nation's history.

For a country that preaches so much about protection of civil liberties and being the home of the free we sure have a lot of evidence to the contrary. It is disturbing just how much ignorance is on display when it comes to things like discrimination. I also always love how people start to think the country has moved on when it has displayed time and again that it hasn’t. This film shows the struggle the gay community went through in the early 70’s when the Christian right was trying to strip their rights away in terms of employment. Harvey Milk rose up against the machine in several elections in the San Francisco area and Sean Penn plays him brilliantly in this disturbing yet moving look at his political life by director Gus Van Sant who has been out of the mainstream movie market for awhile.

Universal delivers a strong visual presentation with this one. The movie is intercut with stock footage and stylized photography to capture the early times in San Francisco. Detail can be breathtaking at times and I loved the rich contrast of the imagery. Dimension is first rate but I did find a few scenes here and there that seemed to fall flat compared to the very next intercut sequence. It only happened once or twice though so it is barely worth noting. The photography on display is outstanding and a bit of a departure from the typical cinematography that we typically see from Van Sant films.

The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio and for the most part it is a solid soundtrack. There was some bizarre hard panning now and again that made imaging across the main soundstage a bit uneven. I noticed this a few times and it was mainly an issue with the dialogue. The score has an open quality and the soundtrack as a whole has a very nice spatial design with a realistic soundstage from front to back. Dynamics are average overall.

Extras include a look at the real Harvey Milk with interviews of close friends and stock footage from the 70’s. A production feature takes a look at shooting on location and there is a timeline feature on the marches of the 70’s. This title is also BD-Live enabled.

Gus Van Sant has delivered a very powerful film here and the performances were excellent across the board. This is a sad tale of someone who was really trying to evoke change and provides a glimpse of the struggles that continue to this day.