Vanquish is your typical direct-to-video (or digital) film that might have a great actor like Morgan Freeman and an adequate actress in Ruby Rose, but everything else doesn’t quite work, B/C level stuff that happened to get some recognizable faces.
Vanquish
(2021)
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Lionsgate| R – 96 min. – $21.99 | April 27, 2021
Date Published: 05/14/2021 | Author: The Movieman
|
|
|||||||||||
Lionsgate provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
The opinions I share are my own.
THE MOVIE — 2/5 |
|
Plot Synopsis: A mother, Victoria (RUBY ROSE), is trying to put her dark past as a Russian drug courier behind her, but retired cop Damon (MORGAN FREEMAN) forces Victoria to do his bidding, collecting stashes of cash in five locations, by holding her daughter hostage. Now, Victoria must use guns, guts, and a motorcycle to take out a series of violent gangsters – or she may never see her child again.
Quick Hit Review: Vanquish is one of those films, with the illustrious Grindstone Entertainment Group label strapped onto it, that was always destined for the direct-to-video market, a place Morgan Freeman is accustomed to at this point and now it would appear Ruby Rose has joined that grouping between this and The Doorman. A bit of a shame as I like Rose who isn’t a great actress by any stretch but does well with the right material. The film itself is amateurish at best. The look and feel seems cheap and rather ugly with the usage of a green tint for numerous scenes, hell early on we get the POV of a rat, that was an odd choice. Morgan Freeman for his part was fine though his character is confined to a wheelchair throughout and spends a fair amount of time on the phone. Ruby Rose seemed to be going through the motions, no real semblance of emotion plus she puts on an accent I couldn’t quite place, not that it mattered as it went in and out in the same scene.
Vanquish was directed by George Gallo whose claim to fame dates back to 1988’s Midnight Run as the screenwriter, also penning Bad Boys in ’94 as well as numerous other projects, and helming Trapped in Paradise (also wrote), My Mom’s New Boyfriend (forgot about that comedic gem), a mystery-thriller called Columbus Circle and The Poison Rose which features Freeman and John Travolta no less, and it too was a pretty poor movie. I’m not sure what he was going for here but beyond the style, this was just a bland movie with some atrocious editing (like overlaying scenes that literally had just happened). |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 1½/5 |
|
This release comes with a semi-glossy and embossed slip cover. Inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy, however the only feature is an Audio Commentary with co-writer and director George Gallo. |
VIDEO – 4¼/5 |
| Vanquish reappears onto Blu-ray where it’s presented with the streaming(?) standard of late 2.00 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 1080p high-definition transfer. For the most part the picture itself looks pretty good, detail is relatively sharp and colors, as ugly as they look per the cinematography and lighting, seems on point. In addition, there were no major instances of aliasing or artifacts. |
AUDIO – 4/5 |
| The movie comes with a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which wasn’t entirely strong but effective enough. Dialogue comes through with good clarity and the few action scenes, including a car/bike chase sequence, isn’t really dynamic but shows some okay depth for the front and rear channels, with the LFE kicking on with negligible effectiveness. |
OVERALL – 2/5 |
|
Vanquish is your typical direct-to-video (or digital) film that might have a great actor like Morgan Freeman and an adequate actress in Ruby Rose, but everything else doesn’t quite work, B/C level stuff that happened to get some recognizable faces. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.