The Promise - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Promise

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

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Movie
Most people remember the attempted genocide of the Jews during World War II, but very few people remember that there was another genocide attempted just a few short years ago in Turkey. Back in the beginning of World War I the attempted genocide of the Armenian people was nearly successful under the chaos that occurred during the rising of the Central powers. Many Armenians fled to Great Britain and the United states during that time period, and actually brought with them some incredible cultural elements that are still intertwined with modern society. Terry George comes out with The Promise on home video right about the time that another film about that famous incident comes out entitled The Ottoman Lieutenant. Each one giving a drastically opposing take on the subject matter at hand. The Promise never really gets its feet off the ground entirely, but it does manage to make a solidly entertaining drama (unlike the insanely bad The Ottoman Lieutenant).

The film focuses on a love triangle between an Armenian medical student, an American, and his Armenian girlfriend. Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) is said Armenian student who moves to Constantinople to study medicine after using the 400 gold coin dowry of his fiancé (Angela Sarayan) to fund his trip. In 1914 he meets Ana Khesarian (Charlotte Le Bon) who shares his Armenian heritage and instantly is smitten. The thing is, she is dating an American by the name of Chris Myers (Christian Bale under a mound of facial hair). Miakael and Ana soon begin a whirlwind romance while Chris is busy exposing the Turkish rise to power in WWI and their use of the war to hide the goal of Armenian genocide. A goal that has long been hidden under a polite veneer.

With the Ottoman empire in complete disarray, the three lovers find that they must separate form each other’s sight in order to stay safe and get out of the empire in one piece. Mikael goes underground and ends up working a labor camp, while Chris continues his visual war on the atrocities that are being committed by the Turks as well as the German’s who are playing the Turks for leverage in the high seas (with him ending up in jail for suspicion of espionage). The film ends on a decidedly tragic note (not surprising considering the subject matter), but while the movie has a wonderful touch on a real world atrocity, it tries TOO hard to be an epic movie, instead of just focusing on being a GOOD movie.

The fictional romance between the three is meant to spark a tale of love and turmoil in one of the most horrific incidents of WWI, but rather ends up being a tepid little love triangle that can’t seem to garner any real sense of emotion or empathy. I really do give it to Oscar Isaacs, as he portrays Mikael flawlessly, and the adorable Charlotte Le Bon is noteworthy as well. Sadly Christian Bale is not up to his normal method acting self, and feels like he’s actually phoning it in for once. An oddity for an actor who usually is so engrossed in his roles that he BECOMES them. Sadly Charlotte’s role as Ans is woefully underutilized, as the majority of the runtime is spent with Oscar and Christian’s characters (a flaw that is rather surprising, as she is one of the more intriguing characters in the film).

Much of the middle portion of the film is heavily padded. The first twenty minutes or so sets up the romance between Ana and Mikael, but then it soon peters off and becomes overly cliched with your standard “we’re apart amidst this horrible war!” scenarios and just goes on for far too long. I will fully admit that the last 30 minutes marks a huge upswing in the film, as the emotional climax as the trio are making their way out of the Ottoman empire is incredibly tense. The tragedy that leaves the ending on a rather bittersweet tone is unfortunately telegraphed a bit too much (as is seen by most of the runtime being spent with Chris and Mikael), but the race for the border made for one of the best moments of the movie. Especially after how decidedly languid the pace of the movie was for the hours and twenty minutes BEFORE that.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for thematic material including war atrocities, violence and disturbing images, and for some sexuality




Video:

Period piece dramas tend to be heavily graded, and The Promise delivers on that aspect. Strong honey colored tones mixed with earth browns brings us back to a time long ago and done so with great aplomb. Visual clarity is extremely sharp, and the amount of fine detail on screen is magnificent. There is a definite light softness to the image, but it never seems to take away from detail, but gives the 2.40:1 framed image a slightly dreamy look to it. A look that clears up near the end when Mikael is holding the wedding, and used to simulate the feel of days gone by. Black levels are appropriately deep and inky, and I didn’t notice any artifacting to my eyes, except for the sensation that sometimes the darks got a little washed out due to the honey colored filter applied to the image.








Audio:

Universal has upped the ante just a little bit by including a 7.1 DTS-HD MA track (instead of their normal 5.1 tracks for lower tier titles like The Promise) as well as a Dolby Digital+ 2.0 track (the DD+ tracks haven’t shown ups since the HD DVD days, but the extra bandwidth is nice). The track is compellingly epic, with a wide spacious sound field, as well as a nice balance between the dialog heavy moments and the more intense action scenes. There is a LOT of front heavy moments on the track where dialog is the only real feature, but there are still quite a few ambient noises of the Turkish city bleeding through, and when Mikael goes to his forced labor and the cannon fire in the distance shakes the pant legs with some heavy duty bass. Sounds of falling debris and dirt are distinctly recognizable from any direction, and the overall sense of immersion is quite high. Especially considering the drama centric nature of the track.






Extras:

• Feature Commentary with Director Terry George and Producer Eric Esrailian
• Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Director Terry George
• The Love Story
• War and Struggle
• A Cause

Final Score: ​

The Promise certainly had some “promise” (yes, pun intended) from the initial trailer and star-studded cast, but ends up being a rather uninspiring middle of the road period piece drama at the end of the day. Performances are strong, but never exemplary. Cast members give it their all, but limited direction and well-worn clichés keep it from taking off. It’s like watching a chef put together an incredibly inviting looking cake, but after digging in realizing it just is your average store-bought cake. There’s nothing WRONG with the film besides the fact that it can’t seem garner a whole lot of traction. A frustration that is palpable more for the fact that you can SEE the potential there for telling the story of the famed Armenian genocide, but the kite just can’t get the height it needs. The audio and video are exemplary examples of great Universal encoding, and the extras solid enough, and the film at least solidly interesting enough to recommend as a rental.
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Technical Specifications:

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale
Directed by: Terry George
Written by: Terry George, Robin Swicord
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 7.1, English DD+ 2.0
Studio: Universal
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 133 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: July 18th, 2017

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Rental

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Never knew about this topic during WW1. I will check it out just for the historical details once it arrives on Amazon Prime or Netflix.