A Mighty Heart – Blu-ray Disc Review

March 5, 2009 – 5:31 pm - Posted by: Brendan Surpless

Tags: Angelina Jolie, Archie Panjabi, Dan Futterman, Irrfan Khan, Michael Winterbottom, Paramount, Will Patton

has an average rating of 6.8 on IMDb
1080p in AVC MPEG-4 on a 50gb disc
Dolby TrueHD 5.1
include all the HD DVD ports
–
– 2007
– 108 minutes
– Paramount
–
This uses 31.4GB for the movie out of 34.5GB total.
Street Date: March 24th, 2009

Overall Verdict – Recommended

Buy it for $19.99 @ Amazon.com

— Review by: Brendan Surpless —

The Film is directed by Michael Winterbottom. The film is based on the best-selling memoir by Mariane Pearl (portrayed her by Angelina Jolie). After her husband is captured by terrorists, Mariane headed a desperate search for any possible clues in hopes of finding something that would lead her to her husband. For any of us that followed the news in 2002, which was probably everyone, we all know Daniel (portrayed here by Dan Futterman) was eventually killed by beheading. The film follows the nine days through which Daniel was captured until his untimely end. What results is a truly moving piece of cinema with a tour de force performance by Jolie.

There is something about Jolie in her films. Having never seen “A Mighty Heart” before this Blu-ray arrived at my door, I have no problem admitting that Jolie might just be one of the best actor’s Hollywood has to offer. She puts her all into every role tackling every issue with such raw performances. In her recent “Changeling“, Jolie seems to give her best in the drama genre. Akin to “Changeling“, Jolie acts in a manner that is simultaneously convincing and incredibly emotional powerful that we just can’t help but sit by her as she awaits what we all now know was the grimiest news anyone could hear. Sure it’s probably easy for any to turn in an emotional performance but to actually have the audience convinced that you’re hitting all the notes is a rare feat. And Jolie continues to do this film after film.

Video Quality on this release is in full 1080p using the AVC MPEG-4 codec on a BD-50 (50 gigabyte dual-layer Blu-ray Disc). The film’s color palette features mostly lighter colors (grays and blues) but felt a bit toned down. Perhaps this was done to convey the message and emotion the movie was aiming for. Shot on HD cameras, specifically Arriflex 435, Hawk Lenses and a Sony HDW-F750 camera, there is a sense of film grain present throughout the film. Some might complain at this but I felt it fit the style of the film. Surely the filmmakers were probably trying to aim for a documentary type style possibly as a tribute in sorts to Pearl’s life. Now due to this, the movie has a very basic transfer to it. By this I mean there really isn’t anything to write home here about. Detail remains quite flat throughout while the depth also remains questioning. Still I guess this might be the best we’ll ever see this film. I just don’t imagine most being that impressed here. This earns a very decent 3 Star Rating.

Audio Quality on this release is presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround. Featuring a lossless TrueHD track, “A Mighty Hear” has a solid audio track that captures most of the film’s thematic elements perfectly. Dialogue is rendered fine with no instance of drop out. Even though this is quite the dialogue heavy film there is an actual good amount of response from this track. Dynamic Range, despite somewhat reserved, is good with low, deep bass in some of the action sequences. Surrounds also show good transition from left rear to right rear. This is obviously a more frontal mix but I was quite pleased with what was presented. This isn’t a fantastic track but one that is quite faithful to the product in question. This earns a solid “4 Star Rating.

Bonus Materials are presented in Standard Definition video using MPEG-2 with Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound @192kbps.

• “A Journey of Passion” The Making of A Mighty Heart: This runs close to 30 minutes in length and serves as the making of the film. While we do still get interviews from the cast and crew, I felt something was missing here resulting in a fairly flat and overly Hollywood making of.
• Public Service Announcement: This is a very brief 2 minutes PSA from CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour for the Daniel Pearl Foundation. She speaks on uniting journalism, music and innovative communications.
• Committee to Protect Journalists: This runs about 9 minutes and serves as a look at the foundation that was started to protect journalists around the world.
• Theatrical Trailer (HD): Here the film’s theatrical trailer is shown.

Blu-ray Disc packaging:

Screenshots:

NOTE: The full-sized 1920×1080 files are in a .PNG file format and uncompressed. Bare with the slow loading times, keep in mind these files are at least 1MB (1 megabyte) in size each.

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