The Devil's in the Details Blu-ray delivers great video and audio in this fan-pleasing Blu-ray release
A veteran returns home and struggles with the adjustment to civilian life. Aided by a military psychiatrist, a former Navy SEAL, he is just getting his life together, when he is kidnapped by a cartel and forced to help them smuggle a cache of drugs and money across the border.
Writer-director Waymon Boone was briefly the front man of a short-lived alt rock band in the
1990s, after which he founded a studio called Boondock Films for the production of commercials
and music videos. The Devil's in the Details (hereafter, "TDitD") is his first feature, and it
reflects a flair for making a big story with a small cast, few locations and limited resources.
Boone's material is timely enough, encompassing veterans with PTSD and drug cartels that
operate by seizing hostages and forcing them to perform illegal tasks, but the film isn't a
"message" movie. For Boone, it's all just more caffeine and Red Bull to energize a sensationalist
crime entertainment and get the audience's blood pumping. Which is a perfectly legitimate goal
for a movie director.
TDitD's weakness is with the suspension of disbelief. Boone pushes his lurid tale to such dizzy
extremes that very quickly the audience knows there is Something Wrong with this picture (in
both senses of the word). It turns out they're right, and by the end some things make a lot more
sense than they do midway through the film, but too many viewers will have tuned out along the
way.
TDitD is told out of sequence with fractured flashback structure that is designed to keep the
viewer off-balance. Very little of the film can be related without at least mild spoilers, which I
will try to keep to a minimum. However, if you are the kind of viewer who is deeply spoiler-allergic, your only choice is to see TDitD blind
and take your chances.
Thomas Conrad (Joel Mathews) is a former soldier who has been home a year from a tour in the
Mideast and is struggling to adjust to civilian life in Nogales, Arizona. Separated from his wife,
Selina (Jenna Lyng), and daughter, Chloe (Ava Acres), Thomas has undergone rehab for
substance abuse and spent twenty-two weeks in intensive therapy with a military psychiatrist, Dr.
Bruce Michaels (Ray Liotta), a former Navy SEAL. Excerpts from their confrontational sessions
are intercut throughout the film.
The crux of Thomas' war-time trauma is an experience he can't (or won't) recall. He and a
buddy, Hutchen (Albert Thakur), were checking a house for insurgents, when Hutchen was shot
down. Thomas blames himself. Dr. Michaels is sure there's more to the story, but Thomas insists
otherwise.
Today, though, post-rehab and post-therapy, Thomas has other problems. After a chance
encounter with an ingratiating Hispanic gentleman named Bill Duffy (Emilio Rivera, who played
Marcus Alvarez on Sons of Anarchy), Thomas awakens to find himself suspended in a
windowless room filled with devices of torture that Bill and a humorless individual called Corbin
(Jake Jacobson) proceed to apply systematically. In between these sessions, they hold up a cell
phone on which Thomas can hear his wife, Selina, begging him for help. All of this is in aid of
Bill's initial question: "Are you going to cooperate?"
What Bill and Corbin want is complicated. It relates to a cache of drugs and money of which they
want to take possession and then relocate. The plan for accomplishing their objective involves
various people to whom Thomas is connected and whom he must persuade, over the phone, to
help him. His captors make certain that Thomas remains sufficiently desperate, addled and
agonized to sound convincing. Even though we never leave the room where he is being held,
several deaths occur.
Boone's elaborate editing and time-shifting are designed to keep the viewer as much off-balance
as Thomas, but audiences are wise to such techniques, and it isn't long before the savvy observer
will begin to question the kidnappers' tactics as well as their story. Presumably Boone
anticipated this possibility, because he begins introducing new characters like the drug boss
Guzzo (Noel Gugliemi) just to keep you guessing. Some viewers will think of Shutter Island,
other will recall The Game, and still others may feel like
they're watching an overly arty episode
of The Shield. Far be it from me to say which of these applies—assuming, of course, that any of
them does—but by the end Boone has resolved the situation with reasonable clarity, although
many hours will have to be spent explaining what happened to the authorities. Isn't that always
the case in these kinds of movies?
The Devil's in the Details was shot on the Red system by Kevin McMahon, making his feature
debut as a cinematographer after a prior career shooting and editing television. Judging both by
the lens flares that appear throughout the film and the monitor displays in the "Behind the
Scenes" featurette, McMahon used anamorphic lenses, which is a common technique for
softening the hard-edged quality of digitally captured images. Sure enough, the picture on Image
Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has a softer, smoother appearance than many
digitally acquired films I've seen, and the choice is an interesting one stylistically, given the
harsh and gritty subject matter. TDitD is the only film I can think of that has tried to counterpoint
such material with a visually gentler style instead of roughening the textures even more.
Despite the softness, the image is sufficiently detailed to fully convey the horrific circumstances
of Thomas' imprisonment. Blacks are deep, although the only areas of true black are in the
blackouts that director Boone frequently inserts between edits to create a sense of Thomas
drifting in and out of consciousness. The color palette is drab for Thomas' imprisonment,
desaturated for his memories of deployment and otherwise naturalistic. Video noise, aliasing and
other artifacts were not in evidence. The 100-minute film fits onto a BD-25 without straining,
given the limited extras and the lack of multiple soundtracks.
The sound editing for TDitD is primarily subjective, reflecting Thomas' state of mind as the film
shifts among time periods. It uses fadeouts, sudden loud eruptions of noise and moments where
specific sounds (usually Thomas's screams) are selectively removed from the mix, so that your
imagination makes them even louder. This precision layering is well-reproduced on the DTS-HD
MA 5.1 track, which also places the occasional ominous effect into the surrounds, like the ticking
clock that is heard when Thomas first meets with Mr. Michaels in his office and foreshadows the
stopwatch that will play a crucial role during his captivity. The low-key but suspenseful score by
Danny Cocke, who contributed to Underworld:
Awakening, adds to the overall effect.
Behind the Scenes (480i; various; 12:05): Warning! Spoilers galore. This basic overview
of the film and its characters includes interview clips with Mathews, Liotta, Rivera and
Thakur, as well as several of the producers. Director Boone isn't interviewed, but footage
of him working on set is included.
Introductory Trailer: At startup, the disc plays a trailer for Forced to Fight, which can
be skipped with the chapter forward button and is not otherwise available once the disc
loads.
The chief virtue of The Devil's in the Details is that it keeps you guessing. Some may feel that
the payoff isn't worth it, especially given the brutality of the journey to reach it. Either way, I
doubt the film has much potential for multiple viewings, despite its level of technical
craftsmanship. Still, Mathews makes a credible victim, and Rivera is the stuff of nightmares. Rent if curious.
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