Brian Banks – Blu-ray Movie Review

This is the true story of a high school football star who had already signed on for a full athletic schloarship to USC with dreams of a future NFL career when suddenly his life was derailed the day he was falsely accused of rape. He wound up pleading his case but the judge threw the book at him and the whole affair took him away from football for eleven years. The protagonist is Brian Banks (played by Aldis Hodge). With the unfailing support of his mother (Sherri Shepherd), Brian is able to get a noted defense attorney Justin Brooks (Greg Kinnear) to take his case and try to clear his name.

I really fell for this movie and I will watch it again. Two actors really shone in this film and that would be Aldis Hodge as Banks and Sherri Shepherd as his mother, Leomia. Both of these actors provide excellent interperatations of their characters with some very gripping performances. But it wasn’t all the greatest as there were a few scenes that were overly scripted and fell flat. So it was a mixed bag with some very excellent moments intersperssed with a few head-scratching moments. On the whole, however, the movie was quite entertaining, enlightening, and thought-provoking. I recommend ‘Brian Banks’ as a solid rental choice.

I am going to downgrade the video rating a little bit on this release. There were a number of issues with the video that lead to this decision. The biggest issue for me was the presence of a noticable amount of video noise in certain scenes and even in some scenes that were not exactly “dark”. So this issue registered as a flaw. I also noted that the grayscale tracking was less than optimal which further muddied darker scenes. Outside of these issues, the image was largely acceptable and appropriate for this type of drama.

This is a dialog-centric movie and the DTS-HD Master 5.1 lossless mix lets the vocals shine through with excellent intelligibility. The music is clear and well-integrated within the mix. There are a few scenes where the surrounds offer a nice envelopment, defining the spaces along the way. All in all this is a workmanlike performance that is again appropriate for the style of film.

This package contains the Blu-ray disc and a digital code for download of the film. There is only one on-disc extras: The Story Behind ‘Brian Banks’ which is a short featurette that gives a little background on this true story.