Out For Justice

Ahh, it's the early nineties and the typical action movie is going through a slight change. Criminals are becoming more evil and the good guys more sensitive. There's always going to be those that don't upgrade to the newest styles and stick with their own comfort zones. One of them is Jean Claude Van Damme - I don't think his stories have changed much at all. There's always a brother or family member who's been killed and he's out for revenge. Been there, done that. The other is Steven Seagal - same scenario here. A family member/friend is killed and it's time to take out revenge, personally. Out for Justice is no exception.

Gino Felino (Steven Seagal, I actually had a friend at high school named Dino Folino but that's another story) is a brooklyn born and raised cop. He knows the people, he knows the streets and when one of his best friends is killed in cold blood, things become personal. It's even more personal when the killer is someone he grew up with, Richie (William Forsythe).

Richie is high on drugs and is killing anyone that get's in his way and it's up to Gino to go above the law, above the mafia and above his respect for the parents of this killer to take justice into his own hands.

Presented with an anamorphic transfer, this movie has never looked better. The 2.35:1 aspect ratio gives you a much better framing of the scene that any pan and scan vhs release will ever try to achieve. The increased resolution provides us with a clean image that is lacking a little in sharpness and detail though. This seems to be the fault of the film rather than the transfer as at some stages the cameraman can't seem to focus on the subject correctly.

Black level is not that great at all in some scenes and some artifacting becomes present in this regard. Shadow detail inherently suffers because of this which gives the image a pulsing look as the mpeg code passes through its keyframes.

Color saturation is sufficient and there is a copious amount of blood that varies between a dark burgundy to a bright cherry red. Fleshtones remain consistent throughout so I'd put it down to the film once again.

This is an unremarkable soundtrack with most of the action being concentrated in the forward sound stage. Surrounds were used infrequently throughout the movie and didn't add to much ambience at all.

Dialogue seemed mono at times and it surprised me that the transfer was indeed 5.1 encoded. It sounded more like a 2 channel surround track encoded into the 5.1 space.

There is directionality at times but it's of the harsh variety as cars a screaming across the screen. Shoot-outs tend to be a little harsh on the dynamics aswell.

It's summer, can you hear the crickets?

One of the better Seagal movies as most of his earlier work is and I'm sure there are a few fans out there itching to add to their Seagal collection. This disc will be in there I'm sure.