Justice - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Justice

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

​

Movie
Westerns were once the staple of American cinema. It was about as natural as going out and getting ice cream or going to a baseball game. Up through the 70s (and part way into the 80s) the Western was a powerhouse that gave us John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Steward, Gary Cooper and many more. However, sometime in the 80s the star was slowly starting to fade, and other genres of films started taking #1 at the box office. By the time the 90s had rolled around big blockbuster westerns had pretty much faded into obscurity and were almost unicorns at the box office. However, the DTV genre has been keeping the western alive due to the low budget most can utilize and while most have been pretty much trash, a few gems have slipped through. Unfortunately Justice is not one of those gems. It’s not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination (I’ve seen MUCH worse), but the film is made from a cookie cutter mold, and is about as stale as a warm loaf of bread after the twisty tie has fallen off a few days back.

When he receives a message from his estranged preacher brother Thomas (Jackson Rathbone) is in trouble, U.S. Marshall James McCord (Nathan Parsons) heads down to Nevada to help him out. When he gets there, James finds out that Thomas has been burnt up in a church fire under suspicious circumstances and corrupt Mayor Pierce (Stephen Lang) running the joint. Widow Melissa Pope (Jamie Lynn Sigler) has some of Thomas’s belongings, as well as a plea for James to help find out what is going on in this town. Thomas’s journal reveals the location of a secret mine that Pierce is using to restart the civil war, and It’s up to James to go and find out what is going on.

Unfortunately, things never are easy, and soon James is up to his ears in trouble. Pierce wants him dead, the townsfolk want help, and he still has no evidence of who killed his brother. Even the local military commander has his hands tied and won’t step in unless the U.S. Marshall can find some HARD evidence on the Mayor. And that may prove to be a bit tricky as most of the Mayor’s dirty work is handled by a brutal thug named Reb. A thug who is excellent at his job. Naturally James gets in too deep, needs the help of the townsfolk to make it out alive, and will take out all the bad guys with both guns blazing.

Baby Driver is infectiously entertaining and left me with a giant, sloppy, grin ALL over my face by the time the credits roll. The movie is simple in premise, but ingenious in execution, which
There are two major sins committed by Justice. The first being that it is about as cookie cutter a movie as they come. Each act and stilted line of dialog is straight from the DTV playbook, and delivered in a manner that is about as wooden as my backyard fence. Besides Stephen Lang and famed actress Lesley-Anne Down, the rest of the actors are B, C and D levels actors. Many of whom looked like this was their first script reading of their career (the painfully written dialog probably doesn’t help either). The second is the fact that the movie is so boring that even the actors look like they don’t want to be there. Stephen Lang usually has fun hamming it up as the villain, but it looks very much like he was taking vicodins all day and dozing in between shots. Siger is eager to do her job, but there’s not much to be done with it, and the townsfolk can barely muster up enough energy for a “hurrah!”. Parsons as James is actually the only decent performance in the movie, and that’s because the guy is actually trying, unlike the rest.

It may sound like I’m bashing the movie a bit much, but there is some good points to the movie. The action is passable for a DTV western, and the 92 minute pace keeps it from becoming too much of a burden when it passes the expiration date. Costumes are decent, and the gunfights actually used period appropriate hand guns for the times (something many westerns are really bad at portraying). It’s not going to win academy awards, but I won’t say that this is the worst western I’ve ever seen.




Rating:

Rated R for violence including a brief assault




Video:

The 1.78:1 AVC encoded digital film looks good for the DTV market, and there’s very few things I can say negative about it. The detail levels are always very nice looking, and the period piece costumes allow for some very intimate details to appear to the viewer. I did notice that the colors seem rather flat and dull, with a sand color given some predominant push throughout. This gives some rather pasty faces now and again, although indoor shots tend to be much better, with more robust facial features and skin tones looking a bit more reddish. Blacks are good, but never great, and some mild banding here and there is about the only major artifact that I would see.






Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is as serviceable as the video encode is, making a nice spacious atmosphere for the action western to play out. Gunfights and fist fights sound impressively impactful, although the bass was a BIT on the weak side. Gunshots didn’t ring with that authority and deep throaty power that they usually have. Even the explosion at the mine is a bit under powered. Dialog is strong and clean, with a precise centering in the front of the room and excellent balance with the action. Surrounds are good, showing off the creaks and groans of an old country town, ranging from creaking of boards under the feet, or the slow thud of a barn door slamming shut in the background.





Extras:

• Nothing

Final Score: ​

Justice is an unassuming little western that really defines the term mediocrity. It does enough things right to keep it from being an abysmal failure, but can’t really seem to find its own footing and ends up wandering around the whole time without any tension or excitement in it. Nathan Parsons is surprisingly decent for this hum drum film, but sadly Stephen Lang’s usually energetic persona is rather droopy this go around. Audio and video are very solid for the DTV genre, but the disc seems to lack any extras whatsoever. While I won’t warn you away from the film as a horrible flick, I can’t recommend it in good conscience either. It just “exists”. Personally I would skip it.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jackson Rathbone, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Stephen Lang
Directed by: Richard Gabai
Written by: John Lewis, Shawn Justice
Aspect Ratio: 2.39.1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Studio: Universal
Rated: R
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 17th, 2017

Image

• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it based on your advise.