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Blu-ray Review The Loft Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

Matt Hough

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The Loft Blu-ray Review

A twisty thriller that gets a little bit carried away with its own trickiness, Erik Van Looy’s The Loft, an American remake of his 2008 Belgian thriller (it was already remade in the Netherlands by another director in 2010), features a host of appealing actors and a first-rate production that truly enjoys playing mind games with its audience. Sharing the tone and texture of similar mysteries of misdirection like Diabolique and Malice, The Loft unfortunately lets itself down with a final twist that isn’t worthy of some of the surprises which have gone before, but the set-ups are really fun and the revealing series of surprises saved for late in the movie are certainly worth the ride.



Studio: Universal

Distributed By: N/A

Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

Rating: R

Run Time: 1 Hr. 43 Min.

Package Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy, UltraViolet

keep case in a slipcover

Disc Type: BD50 (dual layer)

Region: All

Release Date: 05/26/2015

MSRP: $34.98




The Production Rating: 3.5/5

Five married men who can’t help themselves when it comes to affairs with other women go in together in a posh, very secret loft where they can bring their ladies for liaisons without the need for fake names in a hotel register or tell-tale credit card charges that might later need to be explained. The notion of having their own private sex pad is wealthy architect Vincent Stevens’ (Karl Urban) idea, but his close friends Chris Vanowen (James Marsden), Luke Seacord (Wentworth Miller), Marty Landry (Eric Stonestreet), and Philip Trauner (Matthias Schoenaerts) all quickly latch on to the idea. But one morning, Luke enters the loft and finds a dead blonde resting in a pool of her own blood and handcuffed to the bed with some Latin words scrawled on the bedstead. Each of the five men claim complete ignorance as to how this happened even though three of the men do recognize the girl. And since only five uncopiable keys exist to the loft (one in the possession of each user), one of the five men must be the guilty party.

 

Wesley Strick’s script is based on director Erik Van Looy’s 2008 film which had a screenplay by Bart De Pauw, but the adaptation has been skillfully accomplished with no hints that betray the story’s country of origin. Strick uses flashbacks and flash forwards throughout to reveal tiny bits of the puzzle at regular intervals, and even then, the revelations are often not what they seem to be requiring the viewer to maintain very close attention if he either hopes to outguess the creators (very doubtful) or stay on top of the very dastardly master plan of the actual culprit. And the crafty filmmakers also love to use misdirection whenever possible having two blonde female conquests (Isabel Lucas as a San Diego flirt attracted to VIncent, Rachael Taylor as a prostitute who catches Chris’ eye) make conspicuous appearances and then not letting us see for the longest time which one it is who’s been murdered. The script also lets us catch glimpses of the troubled marriages of most of the men though it doesn’t celebrate their infidelities, and, in fact, at one point it even seems as if this suspicious set-up to get the men in trouble is a malicious plan formed by a cabal of the cheated-upon wives. Once the puzzle is finally sorted out, however, writer Strick and director Van Looy can’t help having a final skirmish which seems rather dumb after the one who planned this entire venture has been previously so smart throughout the planning and execution of this scheme. It’s a sour note on which to end such a clever game of wicked trickery.

 

All five of the male stars do spectacularly with their roles managing to keep their various secrets hidden for the longest time from both their wives and the audience. Matthias Schoenaerts as the coke-addled half-brother of James Marsden’s character is reprising his performance from the 2008 movie version of the story and stands out not only due to his lack of familiarity to American audiences (compared to the other four stars, of course), but also due to the volatile, unpredictable nature of his character’s wiry emotions. But really, there isn’t a weak performance among these five. The principal ladies, on the other hand, are a bit of a different story with both blondes Rachael Taylor and especially Isabel Lucas not holding their own in scenes with the men. Valerie Cruz and Kali Rocha as the unhappy wives of the Karl Urban and Eric Stonestreet characters respectively do make striking impressions, and Kristin Lehman and Robert Wisdom as the detectives grilling the five suspects after the fact likewise do yeoman work to good effect.



Video Rating: 4/5  3D Rating: NA

The film’s 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio is faithfully delivered in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Sharpness isn’t always optimal during the presentation, and neither is contrast always consistently delivered. There was also a bit of banding glimpsed during the presentation. But color is well managed with believable flesh tones, and black levels are first-rate. The movie has been divided into 20 chapters.



Audio Rating: 4.5/5

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix begins the film literally with a bang that will wake up all who are viewing, and then proceeds to capture this mostly internal story with occasional bursts of split channel effects. John Frizzell’s music gets a rich, full spread through the front and rear soundstage, and the dialogue has been masterfully recorded and has been placed in the center channel.



Special Features Rating: 0/5

Surprisingly, there are no included bonus features on the disc though BD-Live allows users to scan the cloud for other Universal trailers.

 

DVD/Digital Copy/Ultraviolet: disc and code sheet enclosed in the case.



Overall Rating: 3/5

The Loft will definitely keep you guessing, and with its first-rate cast and fine production values, it’s a film that is definitely worth a rental for fans of twisty mystery thrillers.


Reviewed By: Matt Hough


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Mark-W

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Thanks for the review, Matt!


This popped up in one of my "You might be interested in this..." queues and new nothing about it.


Now I do thanks to you!


Best,
 

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