Jerry and Marge Go Large - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Jerry and Marge Go Large



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Out of all the mediocrity that was the pandemic straight to streaming films, Jerry and Marge Go Large is probably the best of the batch. I wasn’t expecting ANYTHING from the film when it dropped on Paramount+ earlier this year, but I gave it a spin simply because it had Bryan Cranston in it, and I’d watch that man read a phone book for 2 hours. Turns out, the film was actually rather cute and sweet, in a bigger budget version of a Lifetime movie. The films isn’t going to blow anyone away with Oscar winning performances, but it’s got some fun moments, and a rather breezy story that wraps up in a comfortable 96 minutes.

Jerry (Bryan Cranston) and Marge (Annette Bening) are your typical midwestern couple living in a tiny town in Michigan. Jerry has been running a cereal manufacturing line for the better part of 40 years, but his line is being shut down and forcing him to retire. Well, Jerry is a bit more than just your average midwesterner in reality. He’s a wizard with numbers, slightly socially awkward (ok maybe more typically midwestern that I made it out to be) and bored out of his mind with retirement. However, just by fiddling around and by pure luck Jerry discovers a flaw in the Winfall lottery system. A mathematical flaw that makes it so that he can double his money every 3 weeks by playing the system.

Bored, curious to see if it will work, and worrying about their meager retirement, Jerry tosses in 8 grand into the system and pulls out nearly double. Letting his wife in on their little secret, Jerry and Marge start gaming the system for real, going to a run down convenience store 10 hours away run by a bored clerk named Bill (Rainn Wilson) and soon start making some SERIOUS money. However, Jerrry and Marge don’t want to just pad their retirement account. With the money they’re making they can actually do a lot of good, so pulling the entire town together, they pool their resources into a licensed business, and soon the whole TOWN is making money hand over fist.

Supposedly this based off of a true story, and while I haven’t read up on the real life Jerry and Marge, I’m pretty sure the next part is fabricated for movie tension. Every movie needs a villain, and this villains comes in the form of Harvard student Tyler (Uly Schlesinger) who has also figured out the same flaw that Jerry did. While Jerry is perfectly happy to make what he can and play the game purely for the fun of it, Tyler is out to make big bucks and Jerry is seen as competition. So naturally a war between the adults and the college students ensues to figure out who will dominate the winning landscape.

Jerry and Marge Go Large is surprisingly quaffable for a streaming movie. It doesn’t try to be anything bigger than it is, and it succeeds in that respect. The movie is entertaining, sweet, and full of solid performances all the way around (with Bryan Cranston literally melting into the role of Jerry with such ease that it boggles the mind). It’s fun, breezy, and by the end I was literally smiling from ear to ear watching them have so much fun playing the game like this. The stakes aren’t that massive, but who cares. This is a fun feel good movie that films like the Lifetime and Hallmark channel TRY to give us, but usually fail miserably.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive references





Video:

Shot digitally, Jerry and Marge Go Large looks quite exceptional on Blu-ray. It’s one of those films that is bright, cheery, sunny and full of warmth to the image. Very little can be said negatively about the transfer outside of the fact that there is a few glimpses of banding inside dark hotel rooms, and a few scenes that look a bit hazy. Otherwise it’s fully of great amounts of detail, strong color replication (it has a sort of honey and oak color grading going on). Simply put, this is a great looking digital image that isn’t super duper fancy and fully of doodads, but ticks off every box for a quality transfer.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is exactly what one would expect for a low key drama. There’s no explosions, no massive use of surround activity, but it’s more than capable of handling all of the dialogue and basic ambiance of a film in this genre. There’s some mild ambiance in the town meetings that Jerry runs, or the honking of cars in city traffic, but most of the surround activity is really relegated to the score. Everything else is pretty much stuck up in the front of the room as the characters speak. Dialog is above reproach and the dynamic range is pretty moderate. As I said before, this is not a track that really stretches the limitations of the lossless formats, but it does everything asked of it without a hitch.












Extras:

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Final Score: ​

Out of all the streaming service only movies produced over the pandemic years, Jerry and Marge Go Large is probably one of the better ones. While films like Red Notice and Infinity heavily disappointed, this one actually EXCEEDED exceptions. I wasn’t expecting much considering the track record of straight to streaming films, but Jerry and Marge Go Large was actually a very competent done feel good drama. Color me shocked. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, though I was a bit sad at the lack of extras. All in all, a fun movie and a recommended watch.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Bryan Cranston, Rainn Wilson, Annette Bening, Larry Wilmore, Michael McKean
Directed by: David Frankel
Written by: Jason Fagone (Based on the Article By), Brad Coepland (Screenplay)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DVS, French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, English, Spanish, French
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 96 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: November 15th, 2022

Recommendation: Fun Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the reviw. I will check this out as well since I am also a fan of Bryan Cranston.