Catch .44 (2011/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)/The Expendables: Extended Director’s Cut (2010/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Point Blank (2010/Magnolia Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B     Extras: D/C-/C     Films: C/C-/C+

 

 

So how about some thrillers with few thrills?

 

 

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson produced, but for a change did not appear in Aaron Harvey’s Catch .44 (2011) that wants so badly to be a Pulp Fiction rip-off, but even Bruce Willis showing up cannot make it so in this mess and missed opportunity of a murder thriller also featuring Brad Dourif, Malin Akerman, Deborah Ann Woll, Nikki Reed and especially the superior Forest Whittaker who steals every scene he is in, outacts everyone all the time (save an interesting scene with Willis) and even has a cast with some chemistry.  Too bad it fails.  Sad.  Extras include Harvey and Editor Richard Byard on a feature length audio commentary that is flat.

 

Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables: Extended Director’s Cut (2010) has been issued ahead of a sequel due soon, but this first effort is an even larger disappointment that wants to bring all the big action names together in a would-be Dirty Dozen romp that is badly written, sloppily directed, corny and features as many bad jokes as it does bad digital effects.  Even many of the fights ring untrue as Willis also shows up here along with a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, and Jet Li (out of place here looking younger and not being a 1980s icon like the others and some of the wrestlers-turned-actors here) invade South America to kill “bad guys”.  It is a package deal and a lame one at that, so the sequel can only be better, but if it follows the formula here, it will be another dud.  Extras include Digital Copy for PC and PC portable devices, an optional Stallone intro, Music Video (?) and three featurettes.

 

 

Finally we have a French thriller in Fred Cavayé’s Point Blank (2010) in which a male nurse (Gilles Lelouche) has his pregnant wife kidnapped by a gang to get leverage with another gangster who kidnaps him (and vice versa) leaving him caught in the middle.  This is somewhat formulaic and has some humor, but the elements never totally gel despite some scenes working and the cast being pretty good.  Worth a look for some of the moments and the way they shoot in France, but not much more works, yet it is the best of the three films here.  A trailer and behind-the-scenes featurette are the only extras.

 

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on all three Blu-ray releases are on par with each other, having softness and some degraded images to be stylish, though Point is the best-looking overall, it still has its softness.  I cannot imagine any of these looking any better either.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1 lossless mix on Expendables should be the best of the three mixes here, but it turns out to be bombastic and the extra two speakers seem to be pushing it a bit for what the original mix was.  The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Point holds its own and sounds the most realistic and is even slightly warmer than the rest, while the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on Catch is still solid, though not perfect.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo