House of Gucci is hardly a bad movie but it is unnecessarily long and I personally found the Italian accents from most of the cast to be a bit cartoonish, and I don’t believe that was Ridley Scott’s intention.
House of Gucci
(2021)
Genre(s): Drama
Universal Pictures| R – 158 min. – $34.98 | February 22, 2022
Date Published: 02/28/2022 | Author: The Movieman
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Universal Pictures Home Entertainment 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 — 2¾/5 |
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Plot Synopsis: When Patrizia Reggiani (LADY GAGA), an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel the family legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge — and ultimately murder.
Quick Hit Review: House of Gucci is one of those “Inspired by” true stories so who knows how much of this was factual outside of what is known from court documents and testimony while the internal turmoil is likely only partial true, pumped up to add some Hollywood dramatic effect. True or not, the movie in of itself might be well done from a technical standpoint thanks to Ridley Scott’s direction and Dariusz Wolski’s cinematography, marking their ninth collaboration (their tenth will be Napoleon), but the rest was a bit of a mess. While the film does compile a good amount of talent that included Adam Driver, Jared Leto, Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons, along with Lady Gaga, their performances, or should I say Italian accents, were a bit comedic, I think unintentionally, Driver and Leto especially, the latter has had praised heaped upon him, but I found him laughable under a layer of make-up and a performance that screamed “I’M ACTING!” more than anything. I will say, Lady Gaga at least wasn’t terrible and played the conniving social ladder climber fairly well.
Also a negative, the story in and of itself isn’t all that compelling. I can appreciate the Italian locales but with the 2.5 hour running time, seemed like some of the extra fat could’ve been cut to make a leaner, more interesting plot although with the caricature characters might not have made a difference anyway. Could be it was just an ill-conceived story or maybe one that would’ve worked in a more darkly comedic way and/or as a mini-series. |
SPECIAL FEATURES – 2½/5 |
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This release comes with a glossy slip cover and inside is a redemption code for the Digital HD copy, redeemable only via AppleTV. All told there’s only The Rise of the House of Gucci: Making of (10:14) goes behind-the-scenes and includes interviews with members of the cast and crew as they discuss the characters. The Lady of the House (5:35) is a featurette on Lady Gaga and the character she portrays. Styling House of Gucci (5:26) looks at the wardrobe and production design. |
VIDEO – 4½/5 |
| House of Gucci comes to Blu-ray where it’s presented with a 2.39 widescreen aspect ratio and given a 1080p high-definition transfer. The picture here looks quite good, detail is sharp and well defined throughout and colors seem to be in keeping with the various time periods the film is set in (from the late 1970s through the mid 1990s). There were no apparent signs of artifacts or aliasing so pretty clean from beginning to end. |
AUDIO – 4½/5 |
| The disc comes with a 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track which outputs clear dialogue but where this comes to life is with the great soundtrack and more specifically time appropriate songs. It’s all well balanced across all the speakers with the rear channels being mostly used for ambient noises or off-screen elements, like the sounds of the Italian village. |
OVERALL – 3/5 |
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House of Gucci is hardly a bad movie but it is unnecessarily long and I personally found the Italian accents from most of the cast to be a bit cartoonish, and I don’t believe that was Ridley Scott’s intention. I guess it’s worth a rental but I don’t really see myself watching again. |
Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers.