Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Bud Johnson's an ordinary dad drifting through life, caring about nothing except his overachieving daughter Molly. Trying to encourage him to get involved, Molly accidentally sets off a chain of events on Election Day that ends with the presidential race coming down to one vote - Bud's.

This film does an interesting job of poking fun of the political process and hitting a bit too close to home on most of it despite it’s rather over the top themes. This was a fun ride considering we just came through a presidential election and I admired a lot of the themes this film presents. It was also refreshing to see the film not take obvious sides throughout. Costner hasn’t been putting out as many films these last few years but he continues to entertain more than most.

Touchstone delivers a great looking HD release with this one. The bright imagery really delivers in the detail department and the image has a very dimensional look to it. Fine object detail is excellent and the color palette really makes for some breathtaking imagery at times. It is too bad every new movie can’t look this good!

It looks as though Disney is moving almost strictly to DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks now. This is a fun mix of good soundtrack selections and dialogue and has a nice sense of atmosphere and ambiance. The front soundstage is wide with a nice balance between the sound design and the dialogue and tonal balance is dead on. The surrounds open up quite a bit with nice discrete cues now and then. Low bass isn’t much of a character in this one but it pops up now and again.

A feature commentary, deleted scenes and a look at the production are all included.

This film was a lot of fun and a refreshing look at our almost comical political process. The performances are great and the A/V presentation was spot on. Definitely recommended.