Brick Mansions on Blu-ray – The DVDfever Review

Brick Mansions is set in Detroit, 2018, and rioting is in full flow in housing block known by this film’s very title.

The council want to regenerate the area, which means that the tower blocks must come down first. Think “The Wire”, but just not that quality of writing.

Lino (David Belle) washes his drugs down the bathplug, and escapes from some heavies, led by K2 (Gouchy Boy) with some fantastically-choreographed parkour action, but the most urgent question is surely, why are their names pronounced “Lee-no” and “Key-2”, rather than ‘Lino’ like the flooring, and ‘K2’ like the mountain?

Then there’s Lola, who’s not a showgirl but a waitress and the girlfriend of Lino, but she’s played by Catalina Denis who also gets to do a bit of the fisticuffs rather than being the average dumb-girlfriend type, so that makes for an added bonus.

Where Detective Collier (Paul Walker) comes in to their world is to locate and disarm a neutron bomb, or what the government prefer to call, a neutron-assisted device, since “Bomb has such negative connotations”. It’s in the possession of the main baddie, Tremaine (rapper RZA), who’s going to set it off and destroy the mainland unless they give him a big stack of cash. He, in fact, also has a rather off-the-wall girlfriend in tow, called Rayzah (Ayisha Issa). Coincidence? Nah.

This is all a tough ask, and to make it even worse, he has to partner up with Lino to get the job done. But, this is actually a plus, given how agile Lino is.

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In Brick Mansions, cars jump about without a ramp, bad guys have henchmen ready to do their crazy requests, none of them can hit a barn door from 20 paces and so on. It’s very predictable in that way but you didn’t come for Hamlet, you came for 90 minutes of action and bone-crunching kicks and punches, and apart from 10 minutes in the middle when it slows down, it delivers what it promises, with some neat slo-mo thrown in, showing that they’ve filmed it at a higher frame rate than usual and then can slow these scenes down so they look superb, and best seen at home so you can rewatch them.

There’s also some nice one-liners and it would’ve been nice to have a sequel to this film, but sadly Fast & Furious star Paul Walker met his demise in a car accident last November, after attending a charity event for “Reach Out Worldwide.”

Here’s hoping we can still get a follow-up with Belle and Denis. I’d enjoy that.

And I also liked the fact that there’s a bigwig called Tom Berringer. Okay, not quite the same spelling, but anyway…

Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.

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The film is presented in the original 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and in 1080p high definition and it looks absolutely stunning, perfectly showing off the urban landscape, well-filmed with cool camera angles, overhead shots and slo-mo. It delivers everything you’d expect from a modern film release.

The sound is in DTS HD 5.1 and the action and gunfire delivers nicely when required, but I didn’t get much going on in the rear speakers, sadly.

The extras are as follows and they’re all in HD, but unfortunately, as one of Paul Walker’s last films, it’s not exactly a fitting tribute as there’s not much to shout about:

• Go Pro Featurette (1:53): ‘ette’ indeed. This is way too short! In fact, it’s basically a trailer with a miniscule amount of behind-the-scenes work. And the main menu mislabels it “GroPro”.

• Inside Brick Mansions (2:16): Another short piece. More of the same.

• Beyond Brick Mansions – RZA (2:02): And more of the same, but with RZA introducing his character.

• Beyond Brick Mansions – Paul Walker (2:14): Can you guess what happens in this one?

• Audio descriptive track: Does exactly what it says on the tin.

So, a great film let down by almost non-existant extras. Shame.

There are subtitles in English only, the number of chapters is a low and perfunctory 12, and the menu – oddly for a Blu-ray – is static and silent.

Sadly, when it comes to chapters, while I remember Warner once going to town on these in the early days of DVD, even giving 44 for titles like Disclosure. Unfortunately, these days, it’s usually a mere 12. And that’s what we get here.

Brick Mansions is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.

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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	8 10 8 1
OVERALL	7

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Detailed specs:

Cert:
Running time: 90 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Cat.no.: 7000062823
Year: 2014
Released: September 8th 2014
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic Hawk Scope)
Disc Format: BD25

Directors: Camille Delamarre
Producers: Luc Besson, Claude Léger and Jonathan Vanger
Screenplay: Luc Besson
Music: Marc Bell and Trevor Morris

Cast:
Damien Collier: Paul Walker
Lino: David Belle
Tremaine Alexander: RZA
Lola: Catalina Denis
K2: Gouchy Boy
Rayzah: Ayisha Issa
George the Greek: Carlo Rota
Berringer: Andreas Apergis
Major Reno: Richard Zeman
Yeti: Robert Maillet
Mayor: Bruce Ramsay
Grandfather Collier: Frank Fontaine