End of Watch - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

End of Watch



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I remember back in 2012, End of Watch was cropping up all over the place on “must watch” lists, and was getting a ton of great press from critics. For some reason, I never ended up watching it until like 5 years ago, when it became a Covid boredom watch (even though I had owned the Blu-ray since roughly 2013 or 2014, by my memory), only to find out that the critics were right. Originally, I stayed away from it because I was burnt out on the whole found footage and “grungy Battlestar Galactica” look that had gotten way overused in the mid 2000s. But coming from a family of cops AND Marines, the film hit a bit different. Sure, it was David Ayer's “street cops are hard” tropes, but this is balanced by absolutely fantastic performances by both Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, and the intense ending that had my heart pounding for about 20 minutes straight. Fast forward a few years, and now Shout! Studios is re-releasing Universal’s 2012 box office hit with a classy 4K UHD steelbook collector’s edition, featuring a remastered Blu-ray to complement the new 4K encode.

End of Watch starts out almost as a found footage film, shot through the lens of LAPD officer Brian Taylor (Gyllenhaal), who is documenting his life patrolling the streets for a film school project. He and his partner, Miguel Zavala (Pena), are involved in a shooting, only to be cleared and put back on the street shortly after, when given a clean shoot ruling by IA. The film follows our two partners around for about 45 minutes of runtime, documenting their duties and their troubles as they move from one deadbeat to another, only for the film to take a dark turn when Brian decides to investigate an address that cropped up in conjunction with a drug bust. Turns out his little detour may cost them a lot more than just some wasted time. The address turns out to be a safe house for human trafficking, getting them in hot water with ICE, who had been keeping tabs on the human traffickers in hopes of capturing the big guys.

And while that may seem annoying as is, this also means that both Brian and Miguel are now put in the crosshairs of the Mexican Cartels, who now see the duo as persons of interest in their dealings. Said cartel heads put out a hit on the two cops' lives, and now both Brian and Miguel have to fight off gang bangers and hit men alike as they try to stay alive and come back home to their families in the wild and woolly slums of Los Angeles

The film isn’t really an action film until the last 20 minutes, but rather tries to take David Ayer's typical “rough cop, rough streets” take that he did with Keanu Reeves in Street Kings and Christian Bale in Harsh Times. This go-around feels a bit more emotional, with Miguel and Brian being actual good cops just trying to make it through the day, rather than corrupt cops or hardened and jaded ones. The film does a great job showing the two men’s characters as they discuss their lives in the patrol car. And we get to watch Brian meet a good girl (Anna Kendrick in a small role), get married, start to have a family like his brother/partner, and the two men grow on you really fast.

But it’s really Michael and Jake’s chemistry together that elevates this movie over being a typical David Ayer cop flick. They give absolutely stellar performances, and they genuinely come across as brothers. That final flashback during the last 2-3 minutes of the movie is some of the most heart breaking and tear inducing moments in the entire film, as the last hour and 40 minutes before have set us up for the tragic finale, simply by Jake and Michael being so tight and intimate (in a platonic brotherly way of course) that the flashback is like a sucker punch to the gut.




Rating:

Rated R for strong violence, some disturbing images, pervasive language including sexual references, and some drug use




4K Video: Video:

End of Watch’s video look was always a bit controversial back in the day for the aliasing, banding, crushing, and blocking that went on with it. BUT, it really seemed not be an encoding problem, but a side effect of the cameras used and the found footage/docu-drama look of the shooting style that got backed into the original master. And while it wasn’t a GREAT looking Blu-ray, it was always a faithful looking one. The new 4K UHD disc looks a bit better, a bit cleaner, and it appears that some of the issues may have been Universal’s older master, as even the Blu-ray looks a tad cleaner as well. Looking at the new Dolby Vision enhanced 4K disc, the film looks really good, though still faithful to the original handheld style shooting that it was known for. The image is never going to be crystal clear, but rather grungy and yellowed, with heavy swatches of darkness. Pitch black interiors still sport great detail for the most part due to the enhanced black levels that Dolby Vision allows for, and while it’s never going to “pop” like a normal film, the gold colors of Liberace’s AK, or the bright purple dresses at Gabby’s party, show some definite saturation increases. There’s still some crush and blocking going on, but when you compare it against the Blu-ray, it’s definitely a lot less.









Audio:

By all accounts, this seems to be a direct port of the 2013 DTS-HD MA track from Universal, so my thoughts on this one will be the same as I had 5 years ago when I watched the Blu-ray. This is a beefy and aggressive-sounding mix, with tons of surround usage as Miguel and Brian traverse the streets of LA. There are moments where dialogue can get a bit hinky due to recording devices in cars, etc., but overall it’s a very clean and clear experience. The last 30 minutes of the film amp things up to level 11 with the infamous shootout, and Ayer specifically chooses to overwhelm the audience with absolute chaos during those moments. Everything is ramped up to maximum on all 6 channels, and the chaos is just merciless. Even in the earlier bits of the film where the two face off against street thugs, the action tends to be fast, brutal, and slams you in the chest with raw power.







Extras:

• Commentary with Writer/Director David Goyer
• Fate with a Badge
• In the Streets
• Woman on Watch
• Watch Your Six
• Honors
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

The film struggles a bit in the first 45 minutes as we try to find a focus for the film, but around the 48-minute mark, when they get involved in the human trafficking safe house, the film picks up in a big way and gets a lot more focused. As I said above, I never watched the film until Covid 19 lock downs as a boredom watch, so I never caught the initial hype for the film back in late 2012, but this is definitely a film that hits you in the feels, and sports a great ending action bit that has David Ayer's hands all over it. The found footage nature of the film fades away to a more documentary style, but it still had that rough and gritty look that you’d see in found footage and handheld shots. Shout! Studios 4K UHD steelbook (no stand-alone regular release) brings us nice packaging, a brand new 4K remaster (both for the 4K disc and the included Blu-ray), and the same extras that Universal had for the 2013 Blu-ray. This is a solid upgrade in my opinion, and for a good cop film that seems to have been forgotten about in comparison to other great ones. Definitely recommended as a good watch.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, Frank Grillo, David Harbour, America Ferrera
Directed by: David Goyer
Written by: David Goyer
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Shout! Studios
Rated: R
Runtime: 109 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: January 20th, 2026

Recommendation: Good Watch