10 Minutes Gone - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

10 Minutes Gone



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
The title of the movie reads “10 minutes gone”, but really it feels like 88 minutes gone to me, as I’ll never get those 88 minutes of my life back. The first few minutes of the movie sets the tone for the bland and boring caper movie, and it only gets worse from there. You can almost predict this is going to a mess from the get go, being that Bruce Willis’s face is plastered all over the front cover, and when has Willis been in a good movie over the last 10 years? Well, outside of the semi decent Death Wish remake that came out a few years ago. It’s kind of like seeing John Cusack or Cuba Gooding Jr. on a new movie. You know that you’re going to hate yourself for seeing it, but you do so anyways just because you missed the days when these actors turned in great performances and starred in good movies.

The film opens up with a bunch of guys planning a heist in loud whispers, even going so far as to say that the nosy bartender listening in is “good people” and continue on with setting up a “3 card monty” style con game for robbing a bank. All is good to go, with lock man Frank (Michael Chiklis) leading the charge with his brother Joe (Tyler Jon Olson) and things go south EXACTLY like you could have guessed. The caper is going right as rain, only for the alarm to somehow get tripped and the men walk out into a blaze of gunfire with the cops waiting for them. Joe and Frank make it out the back way while the rest of the crew engages the police, but just before they get to the getaway vehicle the two get jumped from behind and Frank wakes up with a lump on his head and Joe dead beside him.

Now this is NOT good for Frank, as the people he works for (Bruce Willis sleep walking his way through the script like usual) are not the kind of people you bail on for a job. The mysterious case that they were sent to grab is roughly described as “something so hot that every law enforcement agency in the nation is looking for it”, and the people who hired HIS boss want their package. Realizing he’s been setup, Frank grabs his weapons and Joe’s girlfriend Claire (Meadow Williams), and goes to hunt down the rest of his missing crew to find out who betrayed him, getting the case back if he can.

Kaige is a master storyteller over his lifespan, having given us films like Farewell my Concubine, Temptress Moon among others, but his career hit a peak in the late 1990s and he’s not been having much luck the last 20 years. Luckily Legend of the Demon Cat is a near return to form, as he crafts one of the most visually sumptuous experiences that I’ve ever seen (that’s what one can do with a $170 million budget), and he deftly weaves the two different stories together with the help of some incredible visuals. Kaige has always been a visual storyteller, but up until now the technology had not been keeping pace with the ideas that he would throw out, and in this outing he is able to finally show what he wants on screen without feeling cheesy and overly CGI’d (in mid 90s fashion….*shudder).

One of the most crucial aspects of the first half is making sure that the cat is actually a threat visually. I mean, how do you make a black pussycat a scary thing without eliciting laughter? Kage makes liberal uses of shadows and and outlines of the cat to create some tension, but he sadly overly CGI’d the cat itself, which almost ruined his plans of not eliciting a chuckle from the audience. I really really liked what he did with Legend of the Demon Cat, and it was much deeper and more intriguing than I ever imagined. I would love to have given this a higher score for it’s creativity and visual awe, but Kaige has a problem with the “story within a story” technique, giving a bit too much time in the past, instead of working with the dual sleuths a bit more, as the big “surprise” came a little too early for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, this is a fascinating film that is so much different than your usual Chinese period pieces, and I really did enjoy myself a great deal. It’s just that there are some obvious issues that keep it from true greatness.




Rating:

Rated R for language throughout and for violence




Video:

Once again this is what I would call the “Lionsgate rule of 4”, meaning that the audio and the video are good enough to garner satisfactory ratings, while not ever excelling or going into that coveted 4.5/5 or 5/5 category. The digitally shot film is sufficiently crisp and clean, with a fairly neutral look to it outside of a cool blue tinge to some of the daylight scenes. Facial details and backdrops are appropriately detailed, and the little nuances along the craggy faces are more than revealing (sometimes a little bit TOO revealing as is the case with Meadow Williams bad face job). Blacks are inky and deep enough, and shadow detail is good. There’s some mild softness to the image and some minor instances of banding, but overall this video encode looks good enough to please the average viewer.








Audio:

]The audio track falls into that same rule, giving us a more than pleasing audio experience, but one that really doesn’t try to excel. Dialog is crisp and cleanly replicated in the front of the room, and the mains handle most of the Cincinnati hustle and bustle. Gunshots ring out with authority, and the bass actually has a few surprise moments in store for us (that end shootout in the subway was quite a shocker). Surrounds are active with the hubbub and the score, but never so much that it’s a real awe inspiring situation. Good track, simple design, gets the job done well.










Extras:

• Making 10 Minutes Gone
• Cast/Crew Interviews
• Trailer Gallery

Final Score: ​

10 Minutes Gone is pretty bad, but it’s not as bad as others I’ve seen. It’s banal, boring, bland and several other B words I can’t think of at the moment, but the acting is just that, bland, not horrible. The story itself is mildly entertaining, but sadly the twist can be seen a mile away and the experience is tainted as a result. The Lionsgate Blu-ray is more than capable with the audio and video, with sub par extras on the back end to dig through, so I would just consider skipping this anyways. That is unless you’re really bored on a weekend and this shows up on Netflix


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Bruce Willis, Michael Chiklis, Meadow Williams, Kyle Schmid, Texas Battle, Lydia Hull, John D. Hickman, Swen Temmel
Directed by: Brian A. Miller
Written by: Kelvin Mao, Jeff Jingle
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: R
Runtime: 88 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 29th, 2019

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Will skip it based on you recommendation.

 

[Asere]

Thanks for helping us not have 10 Minutes Gone watching this. I too will skip it.