Though his characters are often the aggressors in his films, Sylvester Stallone plays more the victim or the innocent in the three films collected in this newly released Blu-ray set of three of his popular movies. First Blood (which introduced the cinematic world to John Rambo), Cop Land (which contains what many consider Stallone’s finest performance), and Lock Up (unquestionably the least respected of the three titles collected here) contain interesting variations on the actor’s established movie persona making this a fine deal for fans of the star if one doesn’t already have these films in this collection.
Stallone: 3-Film Collector’s Set (Blu-ray)
First Blood/Cop Land/ Lock Up
Directed by Ted Kotcheff, James Mangold, John Flynn
Studio: Lionsgate
Year: 1982/1997/1989
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1/1.78:1/1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 96/116/115 minutes
Rating: R
Audio: DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1, Master Audio 5.1 English, others
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish, others
Region: A-B-C/A/A-B
MSRP: $ 24.99
Release Date: August 14, 2012
Review Date: August 10, 2012
The Films
First Blood – 3.5/5
When Vietnam veteran and highly decorated Green Beret John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) wanders into the sleepy town of Hope, Washington, he’s immediately cited for vagrancy by bullying local sheriff Teasle (Brian Dennehy) due to his long hair and body odor. When he’s roughed up by sheriff’s deputies as they attempt to book him, his guerilla fighting persona comes to the fore effectively declaring war on the town. Over the course of the next few hours, local and state police as well as the National Guard attempt to bring the soldier down, but they don’t realize that they’re actually the prey to this skilled combat veteran who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.”
The first and best of the Rambo trilogy of films, First Blood skillfully blends action sequences with more dramatic character moments that allow Sylvester Stallone and Brian Dennehy especially to deliver galvanizing performances that dominate everyone and everything else. The adeptly handled cat and mouse search through dense woods places such a definitive stamp on Rambo’s skill set that similar sequences have been carried forward into every subsequent Rambo picture. The brief flashbacks to John’s Vietnam experiences might have been extended slightly longer to give a more visceral impact to his state of mind (though even what’s here plus Dennehy’s unreasonably stubborn attitude are more than enough to enlist complete audience sympathy with the assaulted solider), and Stallone gets a climactic breakdown scene that extends the man’s humanity past the point of his being simply a human killing machine. Richard Crenna makes a grim-faced commanding officer, and you won’t miss that shock of red hair as David Caruso makes one of his first appearances on film as a local policeman.
Cop Land – 4/5
A gaggle of New York City cops have a deal with the mob to look the other way in New York if they’ll finance their homes in Garrison, New Jersey, making it basically a town almost exclusively inhabited by corrupt policemen. The sheriff in Garrison is the good-natured but somewhat slow witted Freddy Heflin (Sylvester Stallone) who is used to giving his buddies a lot of leeway due to his admiration of their work in the Big Apple, a place he’d love to police if only his hearing impairment didn’t preclude his acceptance on the force there. When an I.A. investigator Moe Tilden (Robert De Niro ) arrives in Garrison trying to catch the dirty cops in yet another one of their cover-ups, he asks for Freddy’s help, but he can’t bring himself to be disloyal to his friends until the cops turn on one of their own (Michael Rapaport), and Freddy begins to piece together how nefarious his associates really are.
The script and direction by James Mangold are crisp and deftly handled. The film is a carefully balanced amalgamation of character and action that rarely lets up. And the producers and director have lined up one of the most sensational casts ever to take part in this dramatic story of corruption and renewal. Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Peter Berg, Robert Patrick, and John Spencer live and breathe these parts with their own particular brand of screen electricity, and the town’s three major women characters: cheated-on wife Cathy Moriarty, the other woman Annabella Sciorra, and Freddy’s new assistant Janeane Garofalo bring their own brand of toughness to the story. Stallone is completely out of his comfort zone in this part as the lumbering, good egg Freddy who slowly but surely begins to see his beloved town for the cesspool of corruption that it is. If the characters are painted perhaps a bit too strongly in shades of either black or white, the end result is still an entertaining and unusual drama in the Stallone filmography.
Lock Up – 2/5
With six months left on his sentence for aggravated assault and being served at a minimum security prison, Frank Leone (Sylvester Stallone) is violently abducted in the middle of the night and transported to Gateway Prison, a maximum security facility. Warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland) has a score to settle with Frank who is the only inmate to have ever escaped from the warden’s jurisdiction. Now with the power of prison authority behind him, the warden is free to do his worst enlisting both guards and prisoners in his one man war against Leone. The objective: get to Frank in any way he can so he can keep adding indefinite amounts of time to his sentence.
The script by Richard Smith, Jeb Stuart, and Henry Rosenbaum is heavy on the sadism and nasty violence, but it seems regrettably short on legal justification or avenues of lawful appeal. The deck is stacked so unfairly against Leone that naturally the audience is waiting for the victim at some point to turn the tables. When it happens, it seems so ludicrously set-up and executed that there’s little satisfaction in the resolution. It’s not all violence. There’s a prison yard football game which, while intense, holds one’s attention (though it isn’t comparable to The Longest Yard’s game), and there’s a sequence in the middle of the film where Frank builds a surrogate family of similarly victimized cons who work on restoring a car together. Stallone’s Frank seems thicker than usual (he falls into every trap that’s set for him letting emotions overrule his brain despite trying to keep others from acting similarly), and Sonny Landham makes a believably brutal thug out to get Frank any way he can. Donald Sutherland’s one note villainous warden isn’t worthy of his great acting gifts, but Tom Sizemore, Frank McRae, and Larry Romano etch memorable performances as part of Frank’s prison “family.” John Amos as a guard with a core of decency is much better than his material. Darlanne Fluegel makes a forgettable love interest.
Video Quality
First Blood – 3.5/5
The transfer has been framed at the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is presented in 1080p using the AVC codec. Everything about the image is above average without ever venturing into excellent or exceptional territory. There are some soft shots on occasion, and outdoor scenes often have a drabness of color that doesn’t match well with the sharper, more saturated look of indoor scenes. Flesh tones are realistic looking, but black levels are wanting and shadows sometimes crush detail. The film has been divided into 30 chapters.
Cop Land – 4.5/5
The film has been framed at 1.78:1 for this 1080p transfer using the AVC codec (liner notes say 1.85:1, but that's an error). Except for a few long shots which seem a bit soft, sharpness is first rate, and color control and flesh tones are exceptionally handled. Contrast has been dialed in wonderfully to produce a highly detailed picture. Black levels are also wonderfully deep with outstanding shadow detail. The film has been divided into 16 chapters.
Lock Up – 3.5/5
The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in a faithful 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Sharpness is mainly good though sometimes is inconsistent during this presentation. Contrast is likewise occasionally milky and at other times is spot-on. Color is fairly drab and sometimes a bit dated looking, but flesh tones are mostly realistic. Black levels are not optimal. The film has been divided into 12 chapters.
Audio Quality
First Blood – 3.5/5
The DTS-HD High Resolution 5.1 sound mix will never be mistaken for a modern action film soundtrack. While there are some nice placements of ambient sounds in the fronts and rears and Jerry Goldsmith’s effective background score gets a good placement throughout the soundfield, the copious gunfire and explosions in the film simply don’t have the startling depth that a modern soundtrack would boast. Bass is especially lacking in those explosions. Dialogue, however, has been nicely recorded and ADR has been handled well and sounds natural in the center channel.
Cop Land – 4.5/5
There should be no complaints about the exceptional DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix. The soundfield is alive with the sounds of the cities, both New York and Garrison (one enjoys the crickets and meadow sounds in the Garrison woods), and Howard Shore’s dynamic score has been filtered through the fronts and rears to superb effect. Dialogue has been recorded with discretion and has been placed in the center channel. You’ll especially admire the couple of instances in which the sound engineers have represented on the soundtrack Freddy’s deafness in one or both ears at crucial moments in the story.
Lock Up – 3/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is surround in name only. It’s basically a stereo mix which features strong dialogue in the center channel and the rather lackluster ambient effects and Bill Conti’s thumping score in the fronts. The rears are virtually silent throughout, and even the explosive moments in the film don’t carry a great deal of heft in the sound design.
Special Features
First Blood – 3.5/5
There are two audio commentaries. Sylvester Stallone spends much of his track describing ad infinitum the uncomfortable conditions of the Canadian locations and the multiple injuries he suffered doing many of his own stunts. The second track offers David Morrell who wrote the original novel on which the film is based. Both men talk constantly for the length of the film offering different viewpoints on their experiences with the film.
All bonuses are presented in 480i.
“Drawing First Blood” is a 22 ½-minute featurette featuring comments from Stallone, author David Morrell, director Ted Kotcheff, and executive producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna offering opinions on changes in the production over a long planning period, changing the book’s ending for the film, the dangerous stunts in the movie, the effective music score, and the expert cinematography.
There are three deleted scenes (one is a gag reel outtake) which run a collected 5 ½ minutes.
There is a trivia track which may be turned on or off.
The disc offers promo trailers for The Descent and Crank.
Cop Land – 3.5/5
The audio commentary is provided by writer/director James Mangold, producer Cathy Konrad, and co-stars Sylvester Stallone and Robert Patrick. Mangold does an excellent job asking questions of his “panel” (as he calls them at the outset) to generate discussion of the movie. Mostly Mangold and Stallone do the most talking, but fans of the movie will want to hear all of the comments.
The bonus features are presented in 480i.
There are two deleted scenes which run individually 3 ¼ and 1 ¾ minutes. (There is no “play all” option.) There is optional commentary present on them featuring the same four speakers as in the audio commentary.
“Cop Land: The Making of an Urban Western” offers 14 ¼ minutes of sound bites from writer director James Mangold, producers Cathy Konrad and Cary Woods, and co-stars Sylvester Stallone, John Spencer, Michael Rapaport, Arthur J. Nascarella (former NYPD cop-turned-actor), Janeane Garofalo, Robert Patrick, Ray Liotta, and Robert De Niro.
There is a 2-minute storyboard-to-film comparison scene.
There are 1080p promo trailers for The Expendables, Reservoir Dogs, Rambo, Jackie Brown, and Pulp Fiction.
Lock Up – 3/5
All of the bonus features are presented in 480i.
“Making Lock Up” is a 6 ¾-minute EPK overview of the movie with brief sound bites about the story and characters by Sylvester Stallone, Darlanne Fluegel, Donald Sutherland, Sonny Landham, and John Amos.
Another EPK puff piece is on Sylvester Stallone as the actor talks about his character in the film for 3 ¼ minutes.
A montage of behind-the-scenes filmed sequences focuses on the prison set, the football game, and a staged fight in the snow. It runs 8 ¼ minutes.
The theatrical trailer runs 2 ½ minutes.
The interview snippets shown in the preceding featurettes are also collected together but must be accessed individually. The interviewees are Sylvester Stallone (5 minutes), Donald Sutherland ( ¼ minute), Sonny Landham ( ¾ minute), John Amos ( ¼ minute), and Darlanne Fluegel ( ¾ minute).
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average)
This collection of Sylvester Stallone films contains two entertaining movies and one other that’s unworthy to be in the same package. Bonuses have been ported over from previous releases, and the price is right for fans who don’t already have the Blu-ray editions of these movies.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
