The Peanut Butter Falcon Blu-ray Review
Friendship can come in times when you don’t realize you need it most. Friendships that come in tough times, are some of the most unlikely and the most necessary of all. The Peanut Butter Falcon tells a Huck Finn-esque coming of age tale that is sure to delight fans of what I like to call “nice movies.” “Nice movies” are the types that make you laugh, challenge your feelings about fictional characters, and make you hopeful for those people you’ve followed for the length of the film. To be short, The Peanut Butter Falcon is pure delight. Read more in-depth below and click the link at the end of the post to purchase a copy too! Just a reminder, as Amazon Associates, we take a small percentage of those link sales to keep this amazing site going for you all!
Film 
Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is a 22-year-old man living with Downs Syndrome. He lives in an old age home, as his family has decided not to care for him. With no money, nowhere else to go, and a slim knowledge of the real world outside of the home, Zak dreams of becoming a professional wrestler in the vein of his idol, The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) is his caretaker and she can see a wonderful person in Zac that is often misunderstood by others. She has a patience for him that most don’t. Zac often attempts to escape the retirement home to go to The Redneck’s wrestling school. He is typically unsuccessful.
One lucky evening, Zak and his roommate (Bruce Dern) manage to bend the window bars in their room, and Zak busts out, free to flee to The Salt Water Redneck. When it becomes dark, Zak hides in a boat, only to be awakened on the open water. The boat he fell asleep on is being manned by Tyler (Shia LeBeouf) who has just burned thousands of dollars of crabbing equipment from his rivals Ratboy and Duncan.
Tyler it turns out is a small time criminal, who lives on slim means, usually from doing something shady. Tyler ends up being a little deeper though, befriending Zak and encouraging his independence and helping him pursue his dreams of training at the wrestling school. The pair go on a great journey in the south, encountering bad weather, the ocean, some moonshine, an okie baptism and some other important personal discoveries.
The Peanut Butter Falcon is one of those films that you enjoy almost immediately. Zack Gottsagen is a great talent who actually does live with Downs. He has a great sense of humor and comic timing that make so many of his scenes so sweet and endearing. Shia LeBeouf gives a career best performance here too. He works well with Zack and their chemistry too is very sweet, forming a “logical-family” type of brotherhood that keeps them determined to get to their goals. When they begin to bond, we cheer because we see two people who needed each other just at that right moment. Dakota Johnson brings the odyssey down to earth with her lovely performance here too. In all, The Peanut Butter Falcon is one of the best films I’ve seen this year, easily.
Video
- Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC
- Resolution: 1080p
- Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
- Clarity/Detail: This is a great clean image. Clarity is reticent of many new films being released on Blu-ray today. The image overall contains no softness. Details in the foreground and background are beautifully rendered with zero issues to report
- Depth: Depth is great overall. You won’t be feeling like you’re with Zak and Tyler on their journey, but you’ll be taken with all the wonderful dimensions provided by the standard dimensionality.
- Black Levels: Blacks are good and deep and there is no greying or crush to report.
- Color Reproduction: A lot of the film takes place in a wash of bluish-grey or golden hues. These colors are lovingly reproduced on disc. The wardrobe is often shabby and the colors there are natural to well worn clothes in real life.
- Flesh Tones: Flesh tones are very accurate, and you can see the many days of dirt and dust on our main characters as time passes.
- Noise/Artifacts: Clean
Audio
- Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Dynamics: This is a wonderfully subtle mix. You don’t expect much from a comic drama in the sound department, but there are a lot of nice nuances that make you a part of the environments the characters are in. The nature surrounding them is a huge part of the atmosphere. While this isn’t an immersive mix, dynamics are wonderfully admirable overall.
- Low Frequency Extension: There are a few moments that engage the subwoofer at times. When Zak attempts to flee the home early on, he is tackled, and a very pronounced thump presents itself. Later, we hear some bass in boat engines, some moments involving a fire, and later in a wrestling match.
- Surround Sound Presentation: The surrounds are put to great use as many moments occur outside. In moments around the ocean, in fields, on boats, and in rivers, you hear the surroundings prominently throughout. These are nice uses of surround channels that make you feel as if you could be with them, sound wise.
- Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is loud and clear throughout with no issues.
Extras 
The Peanut Butter Falcon comes with a matte slipcover and a digital code in the case. No DVD is included. Extras are slim to none and are as follows:
- Zack’s Story: The Making of The Peanut Butter Falcon(HD, 6:00) – A very short focus featurette on our film’s hero, only offering a short amount of info that leaves you wanting know more.
- Images from The Peanut Butter Falcon (HD, 1:13) – Short and self-explanatory.
- Theatrical Trailer (HD, 2:38) – The same trailer that made me want to see the film before it was released.
Summary
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a wonderful surprise. The type of movie you’d watch to put a smile on your face, and a great one at that. Shia LeBeouf delivers a career best performance and Zack Gottsagen has made a shining wonderful debut here as well. I’m aware this isn’t the type of film to receive a 4K Blu-ray release – It’s a dramedy, and a simple film at that. But this would be an HDR showcase for the format with the gorgeously filmed outdoor scenes (of which there are many…) At any rate though, Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz (as Lucky Treehouse) have written and directed a beautiful film about coming of age, stepping up and doing what’s right, finding oneself and making a life-long friendship when you didn’t know you needed it most. This one obviously gets my Highest Recommendation!
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