- Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
- Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
- Resolution: 1080p/24 (23.976Hz)
- Audio Codec: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish Mono
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
- Region: A (Region-Locked)
- Rating: R
- Running Time: 92 Mins.
- Discs: 1 (1 x Blu-ray)
- Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
- Blu-ray Release Date: September 6, 2011
- List Price: $29.99
[amazon-product]B0058O1FI4[/amazon-product]
Purchase The Entitled on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1.5/5]
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)
–
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
The Entitled might be enjoyable to watch if you sit back, relax, and don’t fret over the details of the plot too much.The direct-to-video title has high quality production values, strong acting with a few recognizable names to keep you hooked. Never mind that you might want need to keep fighting the urge to yell out “why would they do that?!”
Kevin Zegers plays Paul, a young college graduate two-years out of school who is feeling the effects of the recession. Unable to find a job and with a sickly mother, Paul devises a scheme to make it rich by kidnapping the “entitled” college kids of three wealthy businessmen, holding them for ransom until he can obtain $3 million from each of their fathers. He enlists two college loners to help him do the deed, the type he can easily manipulate and possibly pin the blame on should things go awry.
The film succeeds in showcasing the intense drama and emotions involved in carrying out the plan as well as capturing the response between the kidnapped’s parents. Much kudos should go to the veterans Ray Liotta, Victor Garber, and Stephen McHattie who play their parts well with a script that is much lacking in, well, everything.
The whole thing falls apart, however, when not one of these fathers decides to go to the police – not a single one. Come on! They’re going to hand over a million dollars each to some anonymous kidnapper on the phone just because he threatened to hurt their kids? I understand that the filmmakers were trying to be clever here, but, haven’t we seen enough of these films to know that you have to call the cops? Wouldn’t you call the cops if it were your kids?
Then there is the fiasco of an ending. It makes no sense, to put it mildly, but I suppose when you’re that deep in the hole you have to find some way out, right? There are characters placed here and there in The Entitled that serve no purpose other than to chisel out an unlikely ending. The twists are supposed to be clever and unexpected, but they just don’t add up.
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
The mid-level bitrate AVC encodement of The Entitled has some slight softness to the overall picture, but blacks are pretty deep, colors look vibrant and flesh tones are natural. There is good shadow detail as well and strong foreground details.
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack supplies clean dialogue and a nice spread of sounds across the front three channels with decent low frequency extension, but the surround channels are mostly silent, being used only for some very slight and occasional atmospheric sound effects.
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1.5/5]
This is pretty barebones, coming with only a brief behind the scenes featurette and an alternate ending that doesn’t do much to fix some of the problems with the film on the whole.
- The Entitled: Behind the Scenes (1.78:1; 1080p/24; 00:11:20) – In this brief featurette, the filmmakers discuss working on the project as scenes of the production meander by.
- Alternate Ending (2.35:1; 1080p/24; 00:04:12)
The Definitive Word
Overall:
[Rating:3/5]
The Entitled is reasonably enjoyable if you turn of your brain only because it looks good and is anchored by strong performances from veteran actors like Ray Liotta and Victor Garber, but beyond that, it is throwaway material. You’ll watch it and quickly forget it.
Additional Screen Captures
–
[amazon-product]B0058O1FI4[/amazon-product]
Purchase The Entitled on Blu-ray at CD Universe
Shop for more Blu-ray titles at Amazon.com
Overall
[Rating:3/5]
The Film
[Rating:3/5]
Video Quality
[Rating:4/5]
Audio Quality
[Rating:3.5/5]
Supplemental Materials
[Rating:1.5/5]
–
