Fled Blu-ray offers solid video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Though serving a prison sentence for using his computer to embezzle from an international corporation, Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) still thinks of himself as an ordinary criminal. His fellow convict, Piper (Lawrence Fishburne), whose basic decency leads him to protect Dodge from an assault by another prisoner, thinks the same. Neither Piper nor Dodge particularly like each other; matters are not improved when they are chained together. When a prison riot transforms into a break-out opportunity, they get to know one another better on the run, and neither is any too thrilled about it. The action soon grows fast and furious when they realize that they are not only on the run from the usual police authorities, but from several different kinds of police and a gang of mobsters, whom Dodge has unknowingly endangered.
For more about Fled and the Fled Blu-ray release, see Fled Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on July 16, 2015 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.
Talk about your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, fully watchable yet completely forgettable 90s Action movie. Director Kevin Hooks' (Passenger 57) Fled finds an eerie middle ground of banality.
It's fairly well made -- nothing insulting here on either side of the camera -- but at the same time it offers an almost impossibly average experience.
It's a film that manages to ascend just high enough to evade the clutches of the harshest critics and it's just bland enough to stay off the radar
screens of more demanding cinephiles. It's the perfect in-the-middle movie, suitable for a lazy, rainy, nothing-better-to-do afternoon but hardly fit for
duty as must-see cinema, of the good kind and the not-so-good kind alike.
Cuffed.
Convict Piper (Laurence Fishburne) has been around the block. He's a veteran of the prison system and chain gang and he steps in when the
fresh-faced new arrival Dodge (Stephen Baldwin) bites off more than he can chew. Their "camaraderie" is rewarded with a steel chain holding
them
together, each bound at the wrist. But as soon as the cuffs are slapped on each man's arm, chaos ensues. A prisoner manages to grab a gun and
proceeds to kill all of the officers. He flees, as do Piper and Dodge. They're pursued by a small army of police officers as well as Detective Gibson
(Will Patton), the man who just put Dodge away. Piper and Dodge manage to evade authorities and eventually free themselves of the chain with
the
help of a "good samaritan" named Cora (Salma Hayek). Eventually, it's revealed that Dodge's arrival on the chain gang scene was no accident.
He's
a computer hacker and has gotten in too deep with the Cuban mafia from whom he stole millions. Now, they're pursued by every law enforcement
officer in the state of Georgia and a more dangerous and determined foe in the revenge-minded Cubans.
Of course, there's more to the story than a simple flight from justice. Fled falls far behind more dramatically dense, kinetically
entertaining, and richly scripted "escape" flair like The Fugitive, a film which is admittedly at the top of the heap of the "on
the run form the law" genre but still the closest thing to which Fled can compare. In an effort to add some variety or draw out the story
and fill-in for the relative absence of rich character detail and pitch-perfect filmmaking, Fled adds in a zany subplot about hacked
computers, a
disk, and plenty of cash that just so happens to place the convicts in the middle of more mayhem than they can realistically handle. It allows for
greater freedom for the movie to showcase bits of violence -- bloody, painful gun fights -- that it probably couldn't do with only the "right side of
the law" cops on the convicts' trail (though it does seem to relish a scene in which a lawman shoots a convict -- not one of the "heroes" -- right
through the heart with a deer rifle, and to bloody result). It never quite adds up or brings much to the table that some more carefully scripted
character bits couldn't provide, and the result is a story that's too convoluted and involved for what should be a simple and unique twist on the
"buddy" genre.
Fled has enough sense to realize that it's hardly the stuff of classic cinema, and what better way to spruce up a dud than to force some
comparisons with better movies? At practically very turn, Dodge -- a walking encyclopedia of motion pictures -- spits out one-liners about what
they should and how they should do it based on what he's learned in the movies, citing classics such as the aforementioned The Fugitive
as
well as The Godfather and Deliverance as a means of convincing Piper that they're doing it all
wrong, that they're making a mistake, and that they're better off using the Hollywood template rather than their own good sense to get out of a
sticky
situation. Piper even gets in on the act when he references Shaft as sort of a back-at-ya to Dodge. And in a strange, albeit very
subtle, way, the mere mention of superior cinema helps Fled tremendously, not enough to get it over the hump but enough to bring a
smile to the face of everyone watching with its knowing, sly manipulation that increases its charm many times over where it otherwise does not
exist. It's
nowhere near enough to save the movie (even with some other cinematic "thefts" in its pocket, such as using the color-coded gun magazine trick
from Die Hard 2) but a little help goes a long way down the road of
"average."
Fled's 1080p transfer isn't a looker, but it gets the job done. It's heavily speckled and spotted, showing a fair bit of wear and debris, but rarely
ever to a truly debilitating extent. A few scenes look a little flat and processed, but generally the image enjoys decent enough clarity and definition to
go along with a sometimes uneven but present grain structure.
Basics like clothing and skin textures are fairly presented, but wooded terrain and various urban details lack that true, razor-sharp texturing. Colors are
likewise passably uninteresting, producing various bright and earthy shades alike with workmanlike attention to detail rather than purely organic, eye
popping precision. Black levels and flesh tones satisfy. There are few edge halos and minor noise but no distracting aliasing, macroblocking, or other
eyesores.
Fled features a fairly robust, but nowhere near perfect, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music is healthy in terms of spacing,
filling the stage with decently defined score and good background placement in clubs. Definition is a little spotty, but there's a well balanced and
moderately authoritative low end supporting. The low end is also present in a number of elements throughout, including hefty explosions, moderately
aggressive gunfire, weighty crashes, and other action-oriented effects. Various background support pieces, like barking bloodhounds or natural
environmental support pieces, are nicely placed and help build a greater atmosphere around the action. Dialogue is well prioritized and clear.
Fortunately, Fled -- at least the nuts-and-bolts, "convicts as main characters on the run from the authorities" core -- was later done right by
Joel and
Ethan Coen in the brilliant O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a movie with pitch-perfect characterization,
faultless craftsmanship, and even a memorable soundtrack that fit right into the middle of the film's narrative. Fled is a rather dismal effort in
comparison, even as it's a decent enough entertainer in its own right. Even the leads don't share much obvious chemistry,
but the movie should satisfy audiences in search of something to kill a couple of hours, and Olive Films' Blu-ray fits the bill. Offering fair video and
decent 5.1 lossless audio, the presentation, imperfect as it may be, satisfies base requirements (much like the movie). Unsurprisingly, no extras are
included. Rent it.
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Fled. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Fled in the search box below.
U.S. distributors Olive Films have revealed that they are planning to add a number of new titles to their catalog in June. Amongst them are Steve Zacharias' Johnny Be Good, Lee Frost's The Thing with Two Heads (1972), and Craig R. Baxley's Stone Cold (1991).
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Fled. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Fled in the search box below.
