Vigilante Diaries (Blu-ray Review)
A high-octane action film featuring 90’s movie heroes, explosive action and international espionage, Vigilante Diaries revolves around a team of black-ops agents turned crime-fighters led by a brooding anti-hero known only as The Vigilante. Missions of rescue and revenge take us from the mega-mansions and underbelly of Los Angeles to far away places like Iraq, Armenia, Russia, and the United Kingdom to introduce us to a cast of colorful, dangerous, and hilarious characters – Beverly Hills filmmaker Mike Hanover (Jason Mewes), a trio of Asian femme fatales, ruthless Armenian mobsters, and at the top, a pair of deep cover super spies hell bent on throwing the world into chaos.
Film 
I don’t know where to start in terms of describing what the Vigilante Diaries is about, because a banal description does the film no justice. Michael Hanover (Jason Mewes) is a filmmaker that has videotaped the leader of a black-op group known as The Vigilante and the video has gone viral prompting The Vigilante and his group of wisecracking tough guys on the top list of evil doers out there.
The Vigilante (Paul Sloan) is a man of few words – he lets his giant fists and bullets do most of the talking. One of his partners in crime is another giant of a man known as Wolfman (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson). If folks up to no good get in his way, Wolfman haves them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and not necessarily in that order.
If I had one word to describe Vigilante Diaries it would be The Losers. Okay, that’s two words but you get the idea. This is a hardcore rated R version of The Losers minus the charisma. The action is brutal and the special effects are quite good. It also lends the film scope in that they shot the film all over the world. It was shot in Los Angeles, Armenia, London, and Scotland.
The story is paper thin but it’s to be expected. In doing some research on the project via IMDB I saw that the film had an original air date of 2013 but those seem to have been “Webisodes.” I don’t know if they ever aired or not but each section of the film is divided into a “Vigilante Diaries,” so I assume that’s where the each episode would have cut if they had left it in serial mode.
Vigilante has equal parts humor and bloody action and should satisfy fans of the action genre. It was good seeing Jason Mewes and a few other familiars all working together on the project. It looks like fun was had by all. Not bad for a 4 million dollar production considering the globe-trotting that was done to complete it. Fun fact – the scenes in Iraq were shot on the same sets used in American Sniper. Vigilante Diaries was a lot fun and here’s hoping you enjoy it as much as I did.
Video
Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Clarity/Detail: Vigilante Diaries was obviously shot on digital but looked stupendous on Blu-ray. I did not spot any instances of tinkering or boosting and when it was used it was more for aesthetic reasons and those were few and far in between.
Depth: 2-D is certainly starting to look like 3-D when it comes to standard Blu-ray nowadays and Vigilante Diaries is one of those films that screams for high definition.
Black Levels: Black levels were deep and crush-free.
Color Reproduction: The color palette was great – vibrant and full of punch.
Flesh Tones: Everyone looked nice and tan – they’ve definitely been spending their time out in the sun catching some rays. No one looked sickly or pale unless they were getting their heads caved in.
Noise/Artifacts: The picture had no signs of debris, artifacts, noise, etc. It was flawless.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English Dolby TrueHD 5.1
Subtitles: Spanish
Dynamics: Vigilante Diaries on Blu-ray really shocked me in that the audio mixers clearly spared no expense in making this Blu-ray one of the best sounding Blu-rays that I have reviewed in recent memory. Dialogue takes a backseat to the action. Gunfire, martial arts, heads getting caved in, etc.; it’s all here in glorious lossless 5.1 sound. This is a reference Blu-ray in terms of audio – it matches up nicely with the video specs, too.
Low Frequency Extension: The LFE bass channel was great – and made the house rumble during the many scenes of destruction. The opening scene was demo-worthy unto itself.
Surround Sound Presentation: There are many scenes involving gunfire and the splatter goes everywhere. The rear channels handle the bloodshed without contaminating the rest of the sound field.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue is uber crisp and clear. Everything could be heard and understood perfectly.
Extras
Sadly, we are left with a standard fluff piece showcasing the main cast and they talk about what a great experience making the film it was. Nothing special here.
- Vigilante Diaries: Behind The Scenes (HD)
Summary 
Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I was expecting from Vigilante Diaries but it delivered in spades. The action was brutal and fantastic and the females were to die for. The guy-banter was terrific even if the main storyline was as basic as it gets. The Blu-ray has phenomenal video and audio specifications but the special features are non-existent. If you want a great looking-action-packed flick then Vigilante Diaries is your ticket to kick-assery.
Vigilante Diaries is available on Blu-ray!
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