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Point Blank
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Magnolia Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Andy James & Noor Razzak (30th January 2012). |
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The Film
 It came as little surprise to discover "Point Blank", a French thriller about an ordinary man doing extraordinary things for his wife, was from the same director as "Pour Elle" AKA "Anything for Her" (2008), Fred Cavayé. I still haven't managed to lay my eyeballs on that quite regarded film (remade by Paul Haggis as "The Next Three Days" (2010)) but after my experience with "Point Blank", I am quite looking forward to. "Point Blank" is, quite simply, nothing more nor less than a cracking action thriller looking to take its audience on a ride. That it is so well made with no higher pretensions is refreshing a change. Things open with a life-or-death chase through the streets of Paris - one man being chased, two intimidating thugs chasing. It's a job gone wrong and is a great way to get the audience hooked within the first few minutes. But things calm down when we meet our main character: Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) is a hospital attendant. He's studying to become a nurse and he and his wife Nadia (Elena Anaya) are expecting their first child. She's in a delicate condition, supposed to be taking it easy for the last few weeks of her pregnancy. Which is, yes, beginning to lay it on a bit thick. Our man from the opening minutes (Roschdy Zem) ends up in the hospital where Samuel works. It's Sam's dumb luck that he has this man in his ward; because of this injured man Sam's pregnant wife is kidnapped and he is to break the mystery man out if he ever wants to see her again. It's an effective set-up and Cavayé keeps the action tense and the twists coming, without overselling them (for the most part). The twists feel less like annoying reversals for the sake of it and more like new layers of danger being layered on the poor bastard caught up in this mess. Lellouche is a perfectly rumpled and distressed protagonist, not a superhuman Jason Bourne-type but more John McClane (from the first "Die Hard" (1988) in any case). There's danger, intrigue, violence, foot chases, corrupt cops and, at the centre of it all, a frightened married couple trying to find each other. The coda in the final few minutes is perhaps a step too far, tying things up a little too neatly but for the majority of it's runtime "Point Blank" is a cracking time at the movies.
Video
Presented in a widescreen ratio of 2.35:1 this image comes to us in HD 1080p 24/fps mastered using AVC MPEG-4 compression. The original film was shot on 35mm film and the resulting transfer looks pretty solid, with a few noticeable issues here and there (nothing too major, more on that later). The image looks nice, especially for a film that features a lot of night scenes, these hold up well however excessive noise is visible in a few shots due to low light levels, making these shots a little hard to make out. Overall the pictures look balanced with a muted color palette, blues, browns and grays look great and feature heavily. Sharpness is good, however not consistent and some shots appear soft. Detail such as textures also look good, grain is present and adds to the overall filmic look of the picture.
Audio
Two audio tracks are presented here in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) dub as well as the film's original audio in French DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit). For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with it's French soundtrack. The film's audio is quite impressive, however doesn't quite break through to the handful of aggressive and complex tracks I've heard from recent blockbuster films. However, in saying that, the audio is well mixed and perfectly suited for this film. The dialogue is clear and clean without distortion. Surrounds are predominant during the action scenes, ambiance and environmental surrounds are also subtle yet effective. Music makes it's prescience know as well. Overall it's a decent track. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired and Spanish. The English subtitles are featured within the film and never overlap into the black letterbox area, the subs are easy to read and I could not find any spelling or grammatical errors.
Extras
Magnolia has released this film with a small collection of extras that include a documentary, the film's original theatrical trailer and a collection of bonus trailers along with some bookmarks and BD-Live access. Below is a closer look at these supplements. First up is the "Behind the Scenes" (1080p) documentary which runs for 50 minutes, at first glance on the Blu-case I thought this would end up being a short EPK featurette, I was pleasantly surprised that it's a feature-length fly-on-the-wall production diary that takes a look at principle photography as the cast and crew shoot some key scenes from the film. There are plenty of interviews and and candid behind-the-scenes footage of the crew at work. Worth a look, but only after you've watched the film as it does contain some spoilers. There's also the film's original theatrical trailer (1080p) that runs for 2 minutes 4 seconds. Bonus trailers (1080p) included are for: - "Outrage" which runs 1 minute 52 seconds. - "Blackthorn" which runs 2 minutes 25 seconds. - "Melancholia" which runs 2 minutes 14 seconds. - "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" which runs 2 minutes 32 seconds. - "HDnet" promo which runs 1 minute 1 second. The disc allows viewers to bookmark their favorite scenes and also features BD-Live access for profile 2.0 players only.
Overall
The film review was originally published on the blog Rockets and Robots are Go! by Andy James. The A/V and supplements were reviewed by Noor Razzak.
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