Why So Blu?

Reach Me (Blu-ray Review)

Led by a stellar ensemble cast, the inspirational dramedy REACH ME tells interwoven stories from a diverse group of people who are united by one thing a powerful book from an anonymous and reclusive author (Tom Berenger). When the book’s positive message goes viral, a journalist (Kevin Connolly) and his editor (Sylvester Stallone), a former inmate (Kyra Sedgwick), a hip-hop mogul (Nelly), an actor (Cary Elwes) and an undercover cop (Thomas Jane) are inspired to change their lives by facing their fears. REACH ME also stars Kelsey Grammer, Lauren Cohan, Ryan Kwanten and Tom Sizemore. 

 

Film 

I can’t believe we’re coming up to the 20th Anniversary of 2 Days in the Valley – the film that made Charlize Theron a breakout star. No, she’s not in Reach Me but the man responsible for it has written and directed this one. What makes Reach Me peculiar is that it has a star-studded cast and the money to make the film was raised via crowd funding sources like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Reach Me centers on a self-help-motivational book written by a mysterious author that no one has ever seen in person.

Reach Me is one of those fragmented stories where tons of characters are introduced solo before their storyline merge together towards the end or middle, etc. We have a gun crazy cop named Wolfie (Thomas Jane) who likes getting into firefights with criminals and enjoys killing them. On the other side of that we also have rap star Nelly playing a rap star name E-Ruption and he tells the world how he lives his life free of crime and trouble thanks to the motivational book. The film gives us many characters (freakin’ tons!) from the right and wrong side of the tracks and how they’re struggling to get ahead via this inspirational book.

On the surface Reach Me looks like a clusterf**k of epic proportions but the truth is that it’s pretty harmless. It means well and gets some good stuff out a few of the actors – Stallone killed it in his short cameo as a tabloid news boss and so did a few other guys. The casting reminds me of the Expendables due to several of the guys being in those films and this one. What hinders the film a bit is that it runs at or just under 90 minutes without credits. For something this character dense we need more time, so we can get some potential closure on certain character threads.

It was neat that the film was entirely shot across Los Angeles County and at some very familiar places and landmarks considering that production halted a couple of times due to fund issues. Kickstarter and IndieGoGo came in and rescued the production. It’s sort of odd, because the film only cost 5 million to make, so I don’t get how they lost funding. Did the investors not see who was in the film? The cast sheet is longer than my arm.

Anyways, rants aside, Reach Me is a passable little feature that has more than a couple of good things in it and an eclectic cast. It won’t blow your socks off but it’s not unwatchable. Speaking of 2 Days in the Valley – is that out on Blu-ray yet?

Video 

Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Clarity/Detail: Reach Me was shot with the RED camera and equipment and the filmmakers got their money’s worth I suppose. Contrast and sharpness levels were steady for the most part.

Depth: Softness was a major issue here as the picture goes from incredibly sharp to somewhat…soft. No, it’s not a nail in the coffin or anything of the sort it just can’t be ignored. I’ve taken points off of that in the rating.

Black Levels: Black levels are deep and inky and stay balanced.

Color Reproduction: The color wheel is rich and vibrant. Taste the rainbow.

Flesh Tones: Everyone has a nice tan – they should since Reach Me was filmed all over Los Angeles.

Noise/Artifacts: Noise does creep in there but it’s not as distracting as the softness levels that I mentioned above.

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

Dynamics: Reach Me has a very robust Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack and it gets the job for the most part. There are a couple of action beats to the film where the soundtrack shines before scaling it back to the more quite and dramatic scenes.

Low Frequency Extension: The LFE channel was on its best behavior as it just nudged this aforementioned action scenes right along.

Surround Sound Presentation: There are several scenes involving crowds, traffic, and noisy environments in general that did not bleed through the other channels. The rears kept it steady and balanced throughout these scenes.

Dialogue Reproduction: This is a dialogue driven film and since most of the folks that have read the inspirational handbook featured in the film quote from it it’s very important that dialogue come through the center nice and clear, which it did.

 

Extras  

Here’s the first goose egg of the year. Reach Me has zero extras.

 

Summary 

Reach Me was not all bad and had some interesting things to it that elevated it above the usual bloat you see in giant ensemble pieces. The Blu-ray, however, is sort of a disgrace. It’s a movie-only version, which sucks, because considering the film was mostly crowd funded I would have loved to see how that started and ended – meaning extra features. The video and audio specs are above average, though. Reach Me is average and rises to above average in certain spots. It’s not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it’s watchable.

 

Order Reach Me on Blu-ray!