3 Days in Malay - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

3 Days in Malay



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Whooooo boy. It’s been an interesting day. I had no idea what sort of up and down roller coaster I’d have. First I had a water pipe burst outside (thankfully not inside my house), my dog escapes and nearly gets hit by a car when the contractor came. I stepped on top of a carpet tack and tore up my big toe as a result. But by FAR the worst thing that happened to me today was having to sit through Louis Mandylor’s 3 Days in Malay.

3 Days in Malay is the film that technical nightmares are made of. Right off the bat it’s pretty obvious to anyone who has ever picked up a history book that this is going to be pretty much pure fantasy. John Caputo (Louis Mandylor) is an ex boxer turned Marine who ships out to the front line of World War II in “Malay” (heads up, there is a Malay coastal area, but no country there named Malay. Neither were there marines out there, let alone American Marines). There he helps bolster the defenses of a Marine outpost headed up by Sgt. Foley (an overweight and obviously bored Peter Dobson) who is trying his best to hold the line against the Japanese troops across the way. Unfortunately for him they’re defenses are not going to hold (although some soldier complains part way through that he only came there because “I was told this position was impenetrable!”) and its only a matter of time before the marines are overwhelmed.

Naturally Caputo is given command of a squad of men after a semi successful attack on the base and told to hold that line no matter the cost (while listening to the swell of background music and staring into each others eyes with a grim look on their face). This means our intrepid Marines (who are carrying guns that are so obviously prop or decommissioned firearms that it made me cringe to my core. I’m talking guns without magazines and without any triggers installed in them at times) have to wait till morning before more reinforcements can make it and help them defend what’s left of the base.

I’m honestly not sure where to begin. I like Louis Mandylor as an actor (he was a blast in My Big Fat Greek Wedding), but holy cow, his pet project (being that he acts, directs and wrote the film’s screenplay) really dropped the ball here. This is straight out of a college student’s film class in terms of production value (sloppy non period correct uniforms, bad acting, writing that made even me visibly cringe), and the acting is beyond bad. Most of the cast are made of up B level athletes and wrestling/mma fighters (Quinton “Rampage” Jackson looks barely recognizable with an extra 80 lbs on him since his fighting days, and none of it muscle) making up the the pool. The direction is listless, with the film meandering from hammy war heroics, to personal tragedies, to making time to schtoop the cute nurse, only to wander back into action war territory once more. Nothing makes sense, and the film feels like a loosely tied together group of scenes that just so happen to be ambling in the same direction.

Possibly my only positive thing to say about the film is that some of the fight scenes aren’t so awful that I wanted to wretch. Sure, they’re not choreographed by Corey Yuen or anything, but the ex fighters and athletes do a good job at simulating a half way decent fight scene. That’s not to say that they were stellar, but when you’re watching a production that is so similar to a box on fire floating down the river, even the semblance of something decent seems good.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

Well Go USA’s Blu-ray release looks as good as the film allows for, but 3 Days in Malay is not an aesthetically pleasing film to begin with. In order to imitate that dusty brown of old World War II era movies, it has a HEAVY yellow and brown hue that just saturates every square inch of the production and saps it of any real color. Sickly, blanched, and mostly devoid of major nuanced details, the image is simply “good enough”. There’s some banding in dark shots, and the sickly hue just muddies things up a bit more. Fine detail are decent enough when there’s enough light, but this is not an overly revealing film.









Audio:

The best thing out of the entire package is the audio mix. It’s not fancy, but it’s fairly effective with a nice sense of presence in the front of the room. Dialog is well placed in the center of the room, with the action and explosions going off in the surrounding speakers quite actively. Gunshots are fairly anchored at the front of the the room, but the score, the explosions and the roaring of planes overhead fill out the back and low end of the system quite well. Again, this is nothing that’s going to shock and amaze you, but the track is technically well crafted and will get the job done without any issues.












Extras:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Well Go USA Previews

Final Score:
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I usually like Well Go USA’s non Asian films that they produce (or at least appreciate the effort that the indie film they pick up are definitely giving), but this one is a swing and a HUGE miss. I didn’t have such a horrible time that I wanted to just down 6 shots of bourbon, but with my water pipe bursting, my toe getting torn up, and my dog nearly getting hit, this is still the worst experience of the day. The Blu-ray looks and sounds pretty decent, but it can’t overcome this mess of a film. Skip It.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Louis Mandylor, Donal Cerrone, Quinton Jackson, Peter Dobson, Ryan Francis
Directed by: Louis Mandylor
Written by: Lous Mandylor
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Well Go USA
Rated: NR
Runtime: 99 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: October 17th, 2023

Recommendation: Skip It