- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
- Subtitles: English, English SDH, Spanish
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: R
- Run Time: 102 Mins
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
- Blu-ray Release Date: December 20, 2011
- List Price: $29.98
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BestBuy.com:
Purchase Blackthorn on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures
(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)
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The Film
[Rating:4.5/5]
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid are two of the most famous outlaws of the Old West, probably made even more popular by the the famous 1969 western starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. What that 1969 film also depicted was the infamous shootout in an abandoned Bolivian village with the Bolivian army that would, supposedly, be the demise of the expatriate criminals.
In the 1980s, however, forensic anthropologists compared the DNA of the bodies buried there to the descendents of the two men, and it was not a match. This of course led to all sorts of speculation over what actually happened to the outlaws.
Director Mateo Gil’s Blackthorn considers the story of the surviving Butch Cassidy (Sam Shepard) who has lived the simple life in Bolivia in obscurity under the name James Blackthorn for nearly twenty-years after that shootout, just raising horses, but now wants to return home to the United States to meet the son he never saw before he dies. But setting off on his journey leads him to a chance encounter with a mysterious Spaniard (Eduardo Noriega), Eduardo Apodaca, who is on the run for stealing money from a wealthy mine owner. It sets Cassidy off on one last adventure that just may lead to his downfall.
Blackthorn is a contemplative, slow-burning western, beautifully filmed on location in Bolivia. The landscape, screenplay, and acting all create a perfect storm of drama, adventure and action set against a picturesque backdrop unfamiliar to most fans of westerns, making it that much more enjoyable.
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
A beautiful AVC/MPEG-4 1080p/24 encodement of Blackthorn shows up on this Blu-ray from Magnolia. Originally captured on Sony F23 cameras in HDCAM-SR at an original resolution of 1080p/24, the image looks surprisingly film-like, what little video noise there is looking much more like grain than anything electronic. There is strong detail and texture in clothing and faces. Flesh tones are natural while overall color reproduction is vivid, vibrant, and really shimmers off the screen. There’s surprisingly good contrast for an HD sourced image, with fairly deep darks and strong shadow details.
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack, a mixture of English and Spanish with optional (though, inexplicably labelled as “forced”) English subtitles, offers up clean dialogue and good dynamics with subtle atmospherics in the surrounds. The lows are extended just enough to give heft to the gallop of horses and a good “boom” to all the gunshots.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
The usual spate of extras graces this Magnolia release, most self-explanatory in nature. There are also two short films from director Mateo Gil included.
The supplements:
- Deleted Scenes (2.35:1; 1080p/24; 00:22:24)
- Making of Blackthorn (2.35:1; 00:10:27)
- Short Films by Director Mateo Gil:
- Breaking and Entering
- Say Me
- HDNet: A Look at Blackthorn (1.78:1; 1080i/60; 00:04:57)
- Blackthorn Trailer (2.35:1; 1080p/24; DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1)
- BD-Live
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:4/5]
A quiet, gorgeous, and thoughtful western that finds the infamous Butch Cassidy in a pensive mood after years of living the quiet life, Blackthorn hits all the right notes as a western and gives us the beautiful “new” backdrop of Bolivia as its setting. Get this one, it’s a winner all around.
Additional Screen Captures
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[amazon-product]B005NGKLX2[/amazon-product]
BestBuy.com:
Purchase Blackthorn on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:4/5]
The Film
[Rating:4.5/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:5/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:3/5]
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