The Courier

 (2012)

The Courier Blu-ray despite great video and audio falls short as a Blu-ray release
A courier hired to deliver a briefcase to an unlocatable crime boss finds himself pursued by corrupt cops and underworld figures.

For more about The Courier and The Courier Blu-ray release, see The Courier Blu-ray Review

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mickey Rourke, Til Schweiger, Lili Taylor, Miguel Ferrer, Mark Margolis
Director: Hany Abu-Assad

» See full cast & crew

The Courier Blu-ray Review

Deliver us from Sivle.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 9, 2012

My mother used to upbraid me with that old adage, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," so with her dulcet tones still ringing in my ears, may I congratulate Jeffrey Dean Morgan on spelling his first name correctly. As someone who has gone through life routinely correcting people who insist that the final three letters of my first name are "ery" instead of "rey", may I just say that Mr. Morgan's sensible spelling helps me to at least partially overlook his wooden acting in The Courier. (We won't even get into those pretentious fops who spell their names Geoffrey.) (Lest someone not realize the tone of the foregoing, all of that was said with tongue firmly planted in cheek, so please no tirades from those named Jeffery or Geoffrey.) Not all of the blame can be set squarely on Mr. Morgan's shoulders, for this fitfully entertaining thriller has some of the most risible dialogue in recent memory, with faux poetic New Orleanians waxing philosophical about the hilariously named bad guy of the piece, one Evil Sivle. (C'mon, at least Knievel would have rhymed and had some name value.) Morgan plays the "courier" of the title, a delivery man of sorts who's a highly paid mercenary who gets ransoms to kidnappers (in the well staged opening of the film) or, in the main plot arc, a briefcase to the mysterious Mr. Evil, er, Mr. Sivle, or at least one of his henchmen. The Courier doesn't seem to have had much if any of a theatrical exhibition, but that doesn't mean it's completely horrible. It actually has some great knock down, drag out fight sequences, and those with a "train wreck" mentality will probably not want to miss the inestimable Mickey Rourke looking like the ghost of Fat Elvis (and you are not alone in noticing that Elvis and Sivle are anagrams of each other).



The Courier plays like a low rent version of The Transporter, albeit without Statham's presence or even the relative finesse that that admittedly flawed film displayed. Things actually get off to a promising start, with a fun opening sequence in an abandoned amusement park where a beautiful if hapless young woman is being forced to literally walk the plank placed laterally atop a precarious old roller coaster. The Courier (that's his "name", by the way) shows up and manages to vault up the structure, toss a bag of ransom money to the bad guys and just barely rescue the girl who is falling rather quickly to her potential death, tethered by a rope which The Courier only barely manages to wrap around a supporting trestle. So far, so good.

But then we get into the main plot and things devolve rather quickly. The Courier is more or less blackmailed into a job that may in fact be rather lucrative (as in 100 large) when two thuggish types show up at his mentor's boxing gym and tell him to deliver a case to Evil Sivle or say goodbye to his little girl. The mentor's name is Stitch (Mark Margolis), a crusty elder who has all sorts of knowledge about Sivle and his crime organization and who also sets The Courier up with Anna (Josie Ho), a formerly homeless girl who is aces at breaking and entering and piloting aircraft (but of course). With precious few leads to go on and a sixty hour deadline to find Sivle rapidly counting down (including on screen clocks which are hilariously reminiscent of the "real life" crime show The First 48), The Courier and Anna set out to complete their rather mysterious mission.

Aside from the rather wide disparity between the acting styles of Morgan (zombiefied) and Rourke (Rourkefied), the major issue with The Courier is that is simply doesn't make a lot of sense. At least two characters are not exactly who we initially think they are, but even after that's supposedly "clarified", things are about as "clear" as mud. The whole MacGuffin (to purloin the famous Hitchcockian device) is a non starter when it gets right down to it, and there are just huge, gaping holes in the logic and even basic storytelling here.

What remains is a film that occasionally rises above its baseline to provide a moment or two of exciting fight sequences, as well as the just plain bizarre factor of watching Rourke attempting to do an Elvis impersonation (albeit in a glorfied cameo that amounts to just a few minutes of screen time). It's hard to see what could have attracted Rourke (not to mention a number of other at least relatively well known actors like Lili Taylor, Miguel Ferrer and Til Schweiger) to this project other than the obvious: a paycheck. Israel-born director Hany Abu- Assad seems to have largely built a career on documentaries, making this putative action adventure flick a strange fit indeed. In an attempt to close this review with at least one other relatively "nice" comment, it's likely true that this isn't one of the worst direct to video (or close to it) releases of all time, it's just that it's hard to come up with another one with the image of Rourke as Elvis burned into my mind.

The Courier Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

The Courier is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is a Red One shot feature and so has the sort of flat, textureless ambience that is typical with this format. While detail is as sharp and precise as it typically is in these digital features, The Courier is kind of an odd duck in that colors aren't always incredibly robust, most notably in some flesh tones. Many times color grading is rather aggressively tweaked in the DI stage, but that really doesn't seem to be the case here, as backgrounds look relatively accurate. Parts of this presentation are just kind of "blah" looking, at least in terms of color and vibrancy. Contrast is strong and black levels are solid throughout the offering, and generally speaking this is a clear and well defined looking Blu-ray, albeit with some peculiarities.

The Courier Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

The Courier's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is about what you'd expect from a low rent property like this. Surround activity is present consistently throughout this enterprise, and is really rather well done in the several action set pieces, but nothing ever really rises to a "wow" factor. Some of the best immersion is in fact in more subtle effects like the roar of a plane panning across the sound field. Dialogue is cleanly presented, and fidelity is fine. Dynamic range is quite wide, and there's quite a bit of boisterous LFE on tap as well, not necessarily limited to gun shots.

The Courier Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

• Behind the Scenes Featurette (HD; 22:33) is about as generic as its title, with lots of clips from the film, interviews and a look at scenes being shot.


• Extended/Deleted Scenes (HD; 17:54)


• Trailer (HD; 1:54)

The Courier Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

The Courier plays like a knockoff of a knockoff of a knockoff, and if that's your thing, you'll probably find enough here to at least warrant a rental. But the film defies logic (there's a supposed "big twist" at the end that fails to really register due to inept writing and execution) and what we're left with is a few exciting sequences strung together with interminable character beats. The really frightening thing is the final moments of the film seem to be hinting at a sequel. Deliver us from Sivle indeed.

Independent distributors Well Go USA Entertainment have officially announced that they will release on Blu-ray director Hany Abu-Assad's The Courier (2012), starring starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), Josie Ho (Contagion), Til Schweiger (Kokowääh), and Mickey ...