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Wrong Side of Town
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (1st May 2010). |
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The Film
 Anyone who has read some of my reviews knows that I’m not only fine with the concept of a movie made by a wrestling federation, but I’m actively waiting for a good one to come around. "See No Evil" (2006) and "The Marine 2" (2009) were two movies I was very open to, but ended up not liking either very much at all. So when I get "Wrong Side of Town" to review, a movie starring David Batista and Ja Rule (who has about 90 seconds of screen time), I’m hoping that I can get something silly and fun, and hopefully I can enjoy without having to dip into liking something for irony’s sake. I went in with low expectations, and while I enjoyed the movie more than any other WWE film, it still just wasn’t that good. What we have here is the story of a really buff guy named Bobby (Rob Van Dam). His new neighbor (Edricki Browne) invites him and his wife out for dinner. Bobby is reluctant, as he expressed that he doesn’t like to leave the house often, especially not to go downtown. However, the group head out regardless, and everything seems to be going fine. That is until the brother of a mobster tries to rape Bobby’s wife, and Bobby ends up throwing the goon into his own knife. The mobster (John Ortiz) sets a price on Bobby’s head, and that’s the movie. Bobby runs around town with his wife, dodging gangs wanting to collect on the bounty. Here’s the main problem with this, and arguably every WWE movie I’ve encountered, is that it just doesn’t know how to embrace itself. This is a movie produced by the WWE, and I wish the spirit of what makes staged wrestling so entertaining would transer over to film. For some reason, "Wrong Side of Town" tries desperately to be something it’s not. There are too many moments that try to be emotional, the action (specifically the gunplay) is so lame, and the acting is just atrocious. I mean, these are wrestlers, so all I want are the one liners they deliver at matches. These movies should be as silly as they truly are. I want pile drivers, the people’s elbow, and basketballs that don’t hold grudges. Believe it or not, the one thing that I liked the most about this movie was Bobby’s character. Van Dam is terrible as an actor, but the character of Bobby was one that I could identify with. Now, I’m pretty frail and “masculine” is not the best word to describe me (just read my positive review of "Mamma Mia!" (2008)). However, Bobby is just a guy who wants to live his own life and hates going out, especially to clubs. Also, it is revealed that he’s an ex-Navy Seal, but doesn’t tell any of the cops this because he “didn’t think he needed to.” There’s something about the introverted Bobby that I really identified with, and it made watching the movie much easier. This movie is bad, but at the same time I wasn’t dying while I watched it. It wusses out on so many levels (mainly action), but Bobby’s antics are almost silly enough to be in the WWE movie that I’m waiting for, and WWE, I’ll always be waiting and ready to see your masterpiece.
Video
"Wrong Side of Town" is presented in a 1.85:1 1080p 24/fps HD transfer mastered in AVC MPEG-4 compression, and was expecting much less than I got. Previous Lionsgate WWE movies looked terrible on Blu-ray, but this film looks amazingly top notch. The majority of the movie takes place at night in the city, and considering how much black there is on screen, I thought we’d be in for a snowstorm of noise and grain, but all the black colors looked sleek as hell. Also, the movie sports some warm yellows and popping reds at nightclubs and in the city. The versatile lighting of the film seemed suspiciously professional.
Audio
"Wrong Side of Town" is presented in an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, and sadly couldn’t match the video quality. The movie technically is an action film, but there is no punch to the punches nor bang to the gun shots. Also, in a few instances, the music played too loud over some dialogue and I couldn’t really hear what was being said, though I wasn’t entirely sure if this was dialogue I was supposed to hear. Oh, and I feel like this is the right place to mention how god-awful the soundtrack is. This is the sort of “hard” rock that intros low budget pod casts or local sports talk shows. Just terrible. Optional subtitles are included in English and Spanish.
Extras
"Wrong Side of Town" sports extras in the way of some featurettes, interviews, a theatrical trailer and some bonus trailers, all of which are discussed further below: First up is "Set Life with Rob Van Dam" featurette, running for 1 minute and 47 seconds, and here the star emphasizes how amazed he is that the movie takes place in one night, but filming took three weeks. Also, he complains about doing stunts in tight jeans, I can’t tell if this is really funny or sort of sad. Next we have "Interviews with the Stars" featurette, which runs for 3 minutes and 50 seconds, and here you get more Rob Van Dam and other cast members talking about each other, focusing on how Van Dam and David Batista talking about channeled their time in the WWE together to portray old war buddies. I actually found this to be sort of interesting, because it’s not every day that a couple of WWE stars lay down acting method. "Stunts with Van Dam" is the next featurette, and it runs for 2 minutes and 5 seconds. This is a behind-the-scenes look at some of the “big” action scenes. This is pretty standard stuff, and sort of interesting when you get to see Van Dam doing his own stunts, especially when they show that they didn’t use as many safety precautions as they probably should have. Also included is "Kali Training with David Batista, Marrese Crump and Oscar Lugo, and this runs for 4 minutes and 8 seconds. This shows off the fight choreography in black and white, set to terrible club music. This whole feature just reminded me how terrible I thought the hand-to-hand scenes were. Also included is the theatrical trailer for the film, which runs for 1 minute and 44 seconds. Also included are bonus trailers for: - "Crank: High Voltage" which runs for 2 minutes and 37 seconds. - "Saw VI" which runs for 45 seconds. - "Lionsgate Blu-ray" promo that runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds.
Overall
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