Green Book – Blu-ray Movie Review

This is another movie loosely based on a true story. The characters are real but the story is embellished in the classic Hollywood fashion. The main characters are “Tony Lip” (Viggo Mortensen) and Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali). The movie opens with Tony Lip looking for work as a bouncer after the club where he was working closed for renovations. He winds up getting a gig driving for Don Shirley on his tour through Deep South America. You see, Shirley is an African-American and the year is 1962 so he needs a rough and tumble driver like Lip to keep him safe. The movie is named after the Green Book that was a guide for blacks traveling through the South. This book listed where black travelers would be welcome to stay and eat while in the South. The pair’s experiences pull them together and they become close friends by the end of the journey.

This movie won three Academy Awards this year – Best Film, Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), and Best Original Screenplay. Finally I agree with the results of the balloting! I say this because this was such an amazing movie through and through. The story, the acting, the editing, the video, the audio, all of it was top tier quality. I rarely pass out five stars for movies (because you gotta have a little “head room” if you know what I mean). But Green Book is worthy of this distinction. My only complaint was that as a period piece I caught one anachronism – the striping for a railroad crossing was of the style impemented about 20 years ago and was not period-correct. So there, that’s my biggest critique.

This movie spans the gamut from bright outdoor scenes to dark barrooms and night scenes. This variety of scenes, colors, contrast, and brightness may well trip up a poorly mastered transfer. In this case, though, the video quality is first rate throughout. The image really pops with excellent details and top notch color fidelity. Even darker scenes hold up with only the slightest bit of noise visible. This is a very high quality video presentation.

This is another excellent Dolby Atmos audio track. Voice intelligibilty is not an issue and is in fact excellent. The music and musicianship are stellar and the disc puts it all on display. The height channels are used sparingly but the overall effect of environmental sounds and ambience are as good as it gets.

This package contains the Blu-ray disc and a DVD. A Movies Anywhere digital code is also included. The on-disc extras include three interesting featurettes:

Virtuoso Performances, An Unforgettable Friendship, and Going Beyond the Green Book.