BLU-RAY REVIEW : Women in Trouble

OK guys, before you start questioning my manliness, let's get one thing straight. Women in Trouble is chock full of beautiful women. Although Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Simon Baker are thrown in for window dressing as the token males, this film's cast is otherwise overflowing with fabulous females.

To be perfectly honest, I only took notice of this small indie film because it features not one but two cast members from TV's most criminally-underrated series, “Friday Night Lights.” Connie Britton and Adrianne Palicki are but two of the film's  titular troubled women, joined by Carla Gugino (“Karen Sisco,” another unjustly-canceled gem), Sarah Clarke (“24″), Marley Shelton (A Perfect Getaway), Elizabeth Berkley (Showgirls) and Emmanuelle Chriqui (“Entourage”).

Women in Trouble, like Crash, attempts to take a bunch of seemingly random folks – in this case women – going through varying degrees of what some might call trouble, and send them on a collision course. The goal being that along the way they, and we, might gain some insight into the human condition. Unfortunately, unlike Crash, Women in Trouble tends to be somewhat tedious and dull and it struggles to find its footing. On the plus side, the bright spot in the film is definitely Palicki, who demonstrates tremendous comic ability as ditzy porn star Holly Rocket.

Screen Media bring the film to Blu-ray Disc and sadly it's a somewhat lackluster effort.  The 1080p video often suffers from focus issues and the image tends to look rather flat overall. Some of the facial closeups and outdoor establishment shots do benefit from the added resolution of Blu-ray, but this disc isn't the title to use when demonstrating the high def format's advantages over DVD. The same goes for the audio, as this dialogue-driven talk fest never manages to take advantage of its lossless DTS-HD platform. Extras are limited to a few brief teasers and a small handful of deleted scenes.

Considering its mediocre technical presentation and scant assortment of extras, Women in Trouble is only recommended as a rental for all but its most die hard fans. The film is worth a spin, but keep your expectations in check.

EVALUATION SYSTEM:

Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 projector
Carada Masquerade screen system (92″)
Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc player
Oppo DV-983H DVD player
Onkyo TX-SR805 A/V receiver
Noble Fidelity L-55 LCRS speakers
Datacolor SpyderTV PRO 2007 video calibration
Monster Power HTS5100 power center
BetterCables HDMI interconnects
UltraLink speaker wire