Blu-ray Specs
Video: 1080p High Definition
Audio: English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, French & Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital
With all of the success from Director John Woo comes another action packed thriller. Woo has such credits to his resume as Mission Impossible 2 and Face Off and now is adding this suspense movie influenced by styling of Alfred Hitchcock. The movie has won awards, though not necessarily the right kind as star Ben Affleck won a Razzie award for worst actor. Affleck is joined by Arron Eckhart (Dark Knight) and Uma Thurman (Kill Bill 1 & 2).
Ben Affleck plays a reverse engineer Michael Jennings who’s mission in life is to work for companies with the sole purpose of taking technology from competing sectors, dissect the product and re-create similar and sometimes better versions of the existing item at hand. The downside of the tasks, Jennings must be willing to have his memory wiped out to the point of meeting his clients but he does collect a hefty paycheck. At a party of an old friend Rethrick (Eckhart), Michael meets a Biologist Rachel (Thurman) and is shot down. Rethrick offers Michael a job with huge money making potential but it requires more of his life than normal, but when he finds out that Rachel is working at the same facility, he agrees whole heartedly. 3 years of his life were lost and things don’t seem as they appear, and Michael is left to figure out what is happening in his life.
The extras are the usual, Director and writer Commentary, a behind the scenes look with cast interviews, extended and deleted scenes and a special feature enlisting the stunt work with a particular focus on the John Woo signature vehicle chase scenes.
I was impressed by the level of quality for the visual aspect of the film, and John Woo delivers with action and suspense as you would expect. The audio was spot on and was clear with no real wide gap in the dialogue to action levels and I think it helped build the tension of the movie.
Ok, having Woo direct is a plus, Uma Thurman and Arron Eckhart are great actors in their own right, but to cast Ben Affleck as the lead with a semi-action feel to it was a bit hard to swallow. Sure he has looks, I guess, but his acting ability was not up to par for my taste. The script was decent and could have been really good if the lead was cast right. Eckhart was brilliant as the villain and has a knack for bringing a true dislike for the characters he plays. Not something I would run out to grab on Blu-ray, but the action scenes are superb.
Reviewed by Michael Albaugh
