Why So Blu?

Enter The Dangerous Mind (Blu-ray Review)

From the filmmaking team of Youssef Delara and Victor Teran (Bedrooms) comes the thriller ENTER THE DANGEROUS MIND, starring Jake Hoffman (The Wolf of Wall Street), Nikki Reed (Twilight franchise), Thomas Dekker (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Jason Priestley (“Beverly Hills, 90210”), Gina Rodriguez (“Jane the Virgin”) and Scott Bakula (“NCIS: New Orleans”).  Debuting on Blu-ray^™ and DVD April 14 from Well Go USA Entertainment and Amplify, the film is a terrifying study of mental illness and the destruction unleashed when someone finally snaps. ENTER THE DANGEROUS MINDfollows a reclusive composer (Hoffman) with an online following who has a tentative romance with a beautiful social worker (Reed). While this romance offers a glimmer of hope, his mind fractures as the voices in his head grow louder and more destructive. 

Film 

Music makes the voices stop. That’s what Jim (Jake Hoffman) wants most – to hide away in his apartment, mixing original dubstep beats as a soundtrack to the insanity of daily life. But it’s not working too well lately. His brother (Thomas Dekker) bullies him into pursuing social worker Wendy (Nikki Reed), and their intimate encounter sparks an obsession that turns Jim into a human time bomb.

From the beginning of this film, its big revelation couldn’t be more obvious.  I was hoping that maybe it’d be a first act turning point, but no they hold it to the end.  And you get to sit and check your watch and wait for it to happen while the film thinks its so clever in keeping it a mystery and surprise.  What we’re given in the meantime isn’t really enjoyable aside from a couple moments that aren’t worth recommending on.

The shame is, that this film has a more than capable cast, but not even they are interesting.  I took on this movie because Scott Bakula is in it.  He’s fine in the movie, but has a really nothing boring part.  The film has Jane The Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez in a pretty small and ignorable part, which is funny because she’s probably currently the most notable performer in it.  It didn’t help either that I found our lead to be pretty boring in the film and his cohort played by Thomas Dekker to be rather annoying.

Reading this, I guess its no surprise I’ve come down on really not liking this one at all.  Its a movie that thinks its more instead of wanting to be more.  The film puts all its chips in one plot twist basket, but forgets to cover it so we can see all the chips just sitting there.  And when it gets to the end, they walk over to show us and “Oops” I forgot to cover that up.  Oh, and the music, while effect in the film, isn’t my cup of tea either, but that’s just a small thing that becomes a larger one due to my boredom.  Definitely watch try to watch something better if a friend says “Hey, maybe we should check this out”.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1

Clarity/Detail:  This features a pretty sharp image that just sort of looks cold and murky at a lot of spots.  There’s a bit of smoothness to some of the detail here as well.  This isn’t some cruddy image by far, but its nothing too impressive.  For what we’re given, its just fine.  And I think a lot of this image’s shortcomings can be chalked up to the photography.

Depth:  Some average work here.  There’s a little blur with some of the motions and not a lot of free feeling in a few scenes.e

Black Levels:  Blacks are deep and consuming.  There are plenty of instances of crushing during darkly little interiors and night time exterior scenes featuring some saturn rings like effect from the point of light.

Color Reproduction:  Colors are natural and solid.  This film doesn’t really feature a line of colors and likes to keep things black and plain for the most part.

Flesh Tones: Slightly cold and consistent.  Wrinkles, moles, blemishes and the like are plenty noticeable in close ups.  Some of the further out shots look to have a little bit smudgy smoothness, but they’re ok.

Noise/Artifacts: There is some blockiness to  darker scenes.

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English 2.0 Dolby Digital

Subtitles: English SDH

Dynamics:  This disc gets this track insanely in your face.  All the dub step kinda music really pumps through your speakers and shakes your room.  Sound effects are distinct and full, while the vocals take stage and blend in nicely with the mix.

Low Frequency Extension:  Drop that bass, yo!  When club scenes or scenes of mental disturbances happen, your subwoofer takes right over and hits the ground with plenty of rumble.

Surround Sound Presentation:  There are some nice moments in the rear speakers and movement from the front in club sequences and street scenes.  Some of the “psychotic” stuff plays well with all 5 channels to promote the feeling of instability.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Loud, crisp and clear.

Extras 

Trailer (HD, 1:53)

Summary 

Enter The Dangerous Mind is a film with a more than capable cast trying their best with a less than capable script.  The twist and drive for the movie is so obvious that the 90 minute movie feels like a 3 hour climb to get to a reveal you’re already more than confident about.  This disc boasts some strong technical merits and whiffs completely in the extras department.  I wouldn’t even recommend it as a rental, let alone a full price purchase.