Once Upon a Time in Venice doesn’t quite work either as crime or comedy, but I have to admit to chucking a few times here and there and can appreciate the cast, though the likes of John Goodman and Famke Janssen were underutilized.
Once Upon a Time in Venice
(2017)
Genre(s): Comedy, Crime
RLJ Entertainment | NR – 94 min. – $34.97 | August 15, 2017
Date Published: 08/14/2017 | Author: The Movieman
|
|
|||||||||||
THE MOVIE — 2.5/5 |
|
Plot Synopsis: Venice Beach P.I. Steve Ford (BRUCE WILLIS) is a former, and disgraced, detective who’s good with the ladies, bad with the punches, and wild about his dog. But when his beloved pet is stolen by local thugs, Steve makes a questionable alliance with their devious crime boss, Spyder (JASON MOMOA). Teaming up with his best friend (JOHN GOODMAN) and his loyal aide (THOMAS MIDDLEDITCH), Steve pulls out the big guns in search of Spyder’s stolen cocaine and cash in order to set things straight and get Buddy back where he belongs. Quick Hit Review: Despite sporting an impressive cast, Once Upon a Time in Venice is an uneven film that does work with some of the jokes, but others fall flat. The film also falters with seemingly trying too hard to be cool instead of featuring a strong story, or even mediocre one. That being said, and because of the cast, it’s at least semi-memorable showing once more Bruce Willis’ comedic chops and even Thomas Middleditch has his moments. John Goodman as always is great while Jason Momoa does fine playing a bad ass, almost like if Aquaman became a drug dealer. Famke Janssen meanwhile only has two brief scenes and frankly, no idea why she was in this other than the role was cut down or it was a favor to the director or producer. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 1.5/5 |
| This release comes with title-embossed slip cover. The only feature included is a Behind the Scenes (16:41; HD) featurette. |
VIDEO – 4.0/5 |
| Once Upon a Time in Venice comes to Blu-ray through RLJ Entertainment, presented with a 1080p high-definition transfer (MPEG-4 AVC codec) and shown in 2.40 widescreen aspect ratio. It’s a pleasant enough video with plenty of bright colors representing the sunny, almost heaven-like, of Venice Beach… with cocaine and night drag queens thrown in. Detail though is decent enough and outside of some banding, the HD transfer does look pretty good. |
AUDIO – 3.75/5 |
| The movie is accompanied with a standard but effective enough DTS-HD MA 5.1 track which provides clear dialogue through the center channel but when the action picks up, the few times anyway, there is a modest amount of depth. Nothing amazing or noteworthy, just efficient. |
OVERALL – 2.25/5 |
|
Overall, Once Upon a Time in Venice doesn’t quite work either as crime or comedy, but I have to admit to chucking a few times here and there and can appreciate the cast, though the likes of John Goodman and Famke Janssen were underutilized. This Blu-ray release by RLJ does feature good video/audio transfers though the one featurette was only average. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.