HTF REVIEW: Mercenary For Justice (1 Viewer)

[Michael Osadciw]

MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE


Studio: 20th Century Fox
Film Year: 2006
Film Length: 91 minutes
Genre: Action/Drama

Aspect Ratio:
[*] SIDE A – 1.33:1[*] SIDE B - 1.85:1

Colour/B&W: Colour

Audio:[*] English 5.1 Surround

Subtitles: English & Spanish
Film Rating:







Release Date: April 18, 2006.


Film Rating: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

Steven Seagal (John Seeger), Luke Goss (Dresham), Jacqueline Lord (Maxine Barnol)

Written by: Steve Collins
Directed by: Don E. FauntLeRoy


It’s time to fight again.


Add this as another straight-to-video film for Steven Seagal, but this time the movie isn’t that bad. Sure, there is some cheesy acting and the corny jokes never stop, but for the most part I think Seagal fans will be impressed with this flick and the amount of action it delivers is very good.

The movie opens with Seagal, as John Seeger, and his mercenaries fighting off the French in South Africa after kidnapping the French Ambassador. But we soon find out that there is tension between mercenaries and John’s best friend is killed in action. But he knows when you are a mercenary there will always be casualties. Seeger soon finds himself being blackmailed into orchestrating a prison break of the son of a Greek billionaire. He must do what he’s told because the lives of his best friend’s wife and little boy are at stake.

This is a film where we just don’t know who is working for whom and there are several villains and everyone seems to be double-crossing the next. Who is to be trusted? Once Seeger finds out he’s been double crossed it’s time to kick some butt.

The movie does look large budget especially being a straight-to-video release. The opening war sequences look good for the most part, but at times it looks too “directed” if you know what I mean, resulting in a much smaller feel. I also have a hard time following these films. It’s very fast paced and I’m not given enough time to let the characters sink into my head so I can get a good grasp of what’s actually happening and why – the why part isn’t always explained well.

Speaking of fast paced, the film also has some strange editing that seems too quick for its own good. I know it was intended to give the film a certain feel but it just didn’t feel right. The same goes for the text placed at the bottom of the screen to tell locations of events on screen; not only did the text look cheap but it disappeared way too fast – I blinked, I missed it, I had to hit reverse on the remote.


VIDEO QUALITY :star: :star: :star:

/ :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

This is a dual-sided single layer disc so both widescreen and 4:3 fullscreen options are available. I only review widescreen of course (because that is what I consider fullscreen!). The video on this DVD is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio; the image is properly centered on the screen with a small amount of unused screen area evenly divided at the top and bottom of the screen. The video quality is variable but most of the time it looks very good.

The colours in the picture, from the greys and browns of war-torn South Africa to the lush and colourful scenery in the United States, are all nicely rendered never looking too hot or too muted. Colour detail in low light areas is good too and it helps that the film has good shadow detail. Contrast is good as well and is never wanting in brightness.

Details in images close-up in the picture look good. Many times it looks like the limits of NTSC are pushed with this disc, but then I have to hold my tongue on the next shot. The picture is variable in terms of detail because there are a lot of scenes that seem unnecessarily soft and out of focus. Scenes that show houses and doorways or people in the distance look undefined and blurry. Some sort of edge enhancement seems to be there occasionally and I’m always confused why it appears hear or there seemingly without any logic but I’m sure there’s a reason. Again I’d like to blame it on a piece of my equipment but the fact that these effects aren’t consistent I have to put the blame on the disc.

Compression artefacts are also intrusive at times. There is more film grain on this picture than other films I’ve seen recently and add the compression effects it gives the picture an occasional solarized look.


AUDIO QUALITY :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

I think a sound designer forgot that 5.1 existed for movie soundtracks and chose to mix for 3.0. This soundtrack, delivered with a Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding, is spotty in terms of a satisfying experience. The main channels used are the center channel and the front left and right channels. The movie has a lot of dialogue that is mixed more forward in the soundtrack that I’d like it to be. It doesn’t integrate nicely at all with the left and right channels that appear, for the most part, to operate on their own. The music is recorded ok but doesn’t sound as good in terms of resolution or detail to other film soundtracks. Sound effects are very channels specific and lack spatial integration. It is also very linear sounding offering limited dynamic range. All sounds seem to like to stay at the same volume level.

The surround channels sound muted mostly through the movie. There are some times when they are engaged but only for very brief moments. The rest of the time they are too quiet to be effective. If I have to get up and put my head against the speaker to hear noise then I’ll just say surround activity is minimal. The same can be said for the LFE channel. Most of the bass does come from the main channels and there seems to be very little below 80Hz in the LFE. The LFE seems to include some duplicated low end from sound effects and music material. Hardly effective and virtually unnecessary. This soundtrack represents a missed opportunity.


TACTILE FUN!! :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
TRANSDUCER ON/OFF?: OFF

Since the LFE channel consists mostly of upper bass material and a duplication of some bass in the main channels with music and effects (imagine a filter sending that bass to LFE), I found using the tactile device more annoying than effective. There was no impact that I enjoyed so I’m going to recommend you to keep the device turned off for this film.


SPECIAL FEATURES

/ :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

The only feature on this disc is a 15-minute making-of featurette. It features interviews from the director and actors mixed in with behind-the-scenes footage. It’s cut well and presented in an interesting way.


IN THE END...

As one of Seagal’s latest efforts, Mercenary of Justice is a typical action flick without anything new or innovative. It’s simply an entertaining film and a much better one for Seagal fans. That is good news considering his films really haven’t been all that great over the past few years.

Michael Osadciw
April 15, 2006.