Day Of Vengeance (aka Blood
Loss/2008/LifeSize DVD)
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C Feature: C
As the Western wound into new territory, the Revenge
Western became a big hit and remained so into the early 1960s. Since then, the tendency has been to weave it
into modern thrillers when not necessarily reinventing The Western every time
out, since it is such an old genre. Isaac
Pingree’s Day Of Vengeance (2008/aka
Blood Loss) wants to be the former,
adding said Western elements into a modern day thriller.
Of course, it takes place in a Southern town, has a
flashback to an earlier even a generation ago (Westerns are often about the
past and even transplants get haunted by them) and an investigation now that is
about people either seeking the truth or trying to hide it. Jake (Tony Kitchin) is going to do anything
to figure out how his father was involved in an ugly incident that is haunting
him and, no, he is not rough enough to handle the town. They do not want to deal with him much
either.
The casting is interesting, but the acting is not as good
as it might have been if Pingree would have taken a different approach. They talk at each other too much and some
scenes do not work. There is a lack of
chemistry at times and much of the storyline is what we have seen before, yet I
liked the locations and some of the ideas, but they were not enough to keep
this afloat. Sebastian Passanisi
scripted and is at least consistent.
This is only for the curious, but I would like to see what these guys do
next.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is soft and
seems to be shot in digital video, so you get a soft image throughout and
though you do get some good shots here and there, it is not enough to
compensate for its shortcomings. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is not bad, but you can hear limits in the location
recording (voices are not captured well by the microphones, et al), so that
really hurts the overall presentation. Extras
include a trailer, photo gallery, Behind The Scenes featurette and feature
length audio commentary by the director.
- Nicholas Sheffo
