Kill List
(2011/IFC/MPI Blu-ray)/Ladda Land
(2011/Millennium DVD)/Fernando Di Leo’s
Madness (1973/Raro Video DVD)/The
Raid: Redemption (2012/Sony Blu-ray)
Picture: B/C+/C/C+ Sound: C+ (Raid: B-) Extras: C+/C/C+/C Films: C+/C/C+/B-
Here are
some of the latest thriller releases you should know about…
Ben
Wheatley’s Kill List (2011) starts
as a tale of an injured hitman (Neil Maskell) asked to join in on three
upcoming missions after eight months of being incapacitated with a partner
(Michael Smiley) of his. He agrees and
everything is going well, but he is angry and his out of control behavior does
not help the situation. However, as they
get deeper into their assignments, something else is going on and the story
takes a turn that might work for some, but ultimately does not work despite the
makers’ best efforts.
It comes
out of nowhere, is not set up smoothly and just does not add up. The performances are good and this is an
ambitious work, but it simply does not deliver.
Genre fans might still want to give it a look for their own
curiosity. Extras include a trailer,
Interviews, two Making Of featurettes
and two feature length audio commentary tracks: Wheatley and Writer Amy Jump on
one, Actors Maskell, Smiley and Myanna Buring on the other.
Sophon
Sakdaphisit’s Ladda Land
(2011) is at least as ambitious, dealing long-term with a family who moves into
a gated community only to find it supernaturally haunted. There are parts that work and that are
effective, but too many that undermine what does work with a resultant
conclusion that does not ring true or has the impact earlier scenes had. I liked the cast and this does have its
moments. Too bad the makers did not pull
off what they intended.
Extras
include a Behind The Scenes featurette
and Interviews with the Director & Lead Cast.
Going
much further back, Fernando Di Leo’s
Madness (1973) has Joe Dalessandro as a murderer who has escaped and goes
for a big chunk of money he hid a while ago.
However, the cottage it is hidden in has visitors for the weekend and he
decides that instead of waiting, he’ll invade their space and ruin their
weekend to get what he wants.
Dalessandro
is dubbed by another man (which is always unintentionally amusing) and has a
typical tough-guy Dalessandro performance in a tough Di Leo film, but Di Leo
seems ot0 want to do a variant of Straw
Dogs without overdoing it and even holds back on his usually bombastic
violent style, though we still get plenty of blood, sex and violence. However interesting, this is just not that
memorable and we do not get enough character development to make this as
effective as other films by Di Leo.
It is at
least something different for the participants or at least a variant thereof
and deserves to be issued on DVD. A
longer version also exists according to the essay booklet authored by Eric
Cotenas (the only extra here), but we only have the shorter version to go by
for now.
Finally
we have a nice surprise, Gareth Evans’ unrated version of The Raid: Redemption (2012) which was shot in Indonesia and stars
Iko Uwais as the best of an elite team of armed (and armored) police on a
mission to finally invade the apartment building run by a gangster kingpin who
had held up in the place for many years.
However, it will not be easy as many of the residents are killer
criminals themselves and then the battle begins.
This is
not a dumb work, not a formulaic stuck-in-a film and not just a sloppy martial
arts exercise, though it has plenty of exceptionally well choreographed fights
throughout. Uwais is an up and coming
international star and this has a nice combination of suspense, a smart
screenplay, good editing and a rarity anymore, smart pacing. Shot in lesser HD video, it manages to
overcome that with energy and atmosphere that does not feel forced and I found
it surprisingly entertaining… at least in its original form.
You see,
the film was just fine with its original score (by Aria Prayogi and Fajar
Yuskemal) in its original language, but for some goofy reason, you can watch it
in a sloppy English dub (even sound effects are messed up) with a really lame
rescoring by Mike Shidoda of Linkin Park and Joseph Trapanese that is bad,
lame, flat, warmed-over, clichéd music with a warmed-over sense of the dead
side of the Rock genre. It has no
intensity, edge or power versus the original score and makes the film boring
and dumb, sabotaging all the good work of the actors and Evans, who allowed
this. One of the dumbest home video
gimmicks of the year, see it with the original music and language first and
then compare and you’ll immediately see and hear the difference.
Extras
include seven featurettes on the film, Video Blogs and feature length audio
commentary by Evans, et al.
For more
on Evans and Uwais, see our coverage of Merantau
(2009) at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10643/Merantau+(2009/MagNet/Magnolia+Bl
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Kill List has some slight styling, but is the best playback
performer of all these releases with good color and detail throughout, while the
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Raid is as weak as you would expect for an older HD format with
motion blur, plus color limits and other flaws as intended. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Land is its equal, but also has
softness, motion blur, downstyling choices and motion blur of its own. That leaves the anamorphically enhanced 1.85
X 1 image on Madness with color as
good as anything here, but the softest transfer here, though I wonder if a
Blu-ray would look better as has been the case with Raro releases before.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Raid and Kill List
should be the best here, but Kill List
has a problematic soundfield with dialogue too low and surrounds flooding over
everything else. Add the sometimes harsh
sound throughout and the mix is a wreck.
Raid has some location audio
issues in its original language version, but the English mix is worse with a
choppy soundfield about as bad as Kill
List, leaving the original music/language Raid as the best mix here.
The lossy Dolby Digital Thai 5.1 on Land
is better than its English dub too, but both lack consistent soundfields. That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
Italian Mono on Madness obviously
dubbed, but clean for its age and not bad.
- Nicholas Sheffo
