Braven is a 2018 Canadian action thriller film that was directed by Lin Oeding and written by Mike Nilon and Thomas Pa’a Sibbett. The film stars Jason Momoa as Joe Braven, Garret Dillahunt, Stephen Lang, Jill Wagner, and Brendan Fletcher. Principal photography began early December 2015 in Newfoundland, Canada.
The film centralizes around Joe Braven, a logging company owner and family man who lives with his wife Stephanie, and their daughter Charlotte. His father, Linden, suffers from dementia and manages to get into a bar room brawl after accidentally mistaking a woman for his wife, requiring Joe to come to his assistance, and resulting in some hospitalization for Linden. Acting on his wife’s recommendation, Joe and Charlotte decide to spend some time together at the family’s secluded cabin in the mountains with Linden.
The film was released on February 2, 2018. According to the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval rating of 74% based on the 23 reviews that have been submitted, and an average rating of 5.8 out of 10.
The Film Itself (3.75/5):
Braven is an all around awesome revenge flick. Offering up the perfect trifecta of events, we’re given a variety of all out brutalism as the storyline progresses forward. That said though, it should be noted that the storyline is a tad tough to follow and that there is minimal narrative in its contribution to the experience. But, overall, this movie makes for quite the experience if you can sit down and unwind after a long day and not really care too much about the movie you’re watching.
Picture Quality (5/5):
The Blu-ray release of Braven looked absolutely fantastic as it played out across my living room television. Offering a beautiful look into the snowy mountainous region in which the film takes place, as well as offering a clean and brutal look into the work that some of these lumberjacks do to be able to support their families, you could definitely tell that there was a lot of attention to detail when stuntman turned director Oeding put his mind into this movie.
Audio Quality (4/5):
Bundled with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track, Braven does everything that it can within its power to offer an all out immersive experience for its viewers. While the track makes really great use of both the fronts and the rears, I personally feel that this release would have done better had they included the surround channels and gone with a 7.1 mix. There really wasn’t much that called for the inclusion of the elevation aspect of the story being presented; but, this movie would have done a significantly better job had those surrounds been mixed in there. Dialogue was clean as the speaking parts were able to be heard and understood without having to manually adjust the volume levels as the movie progressed.
The Packaging (2/5):
‘The Blu-ray release of Braven comes packaged in your standard single-disc Blu-ray amaray case. Within that case is the standard Blu-ray copy of the film, the disc featuring a completely different piece of artwork than what’s provided on the case art. There are no DVD copies included with this release; however, a digital copy redemption pamphlet is included for streaming options. A slipcover has been made available during the initial print run that does feature the same piece of artwork that’s featured on the case art.
Special Features (1/5):
Sadly, the Blu-ray release of Braven is extremely barebones in terms of content. The feature that has been provided does offer a small, extended view into the storyline that this film set out to tell; but, even then, the content is pretty minimal in terms of a satisfactory experience. There isn’t anything that offers any kind of look at the work that went on behind the scenes in making this feature at all. Included with this release is:
- The Braven’s Views
Technical Specs:
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH, Spanish
Runtime
Original Film: 94 minutes
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I enjoyed Braven for what it had to offer. A ton of senseless action sequences coupled with minimal narrative, as it falls right in line into the same experiences of the various Transformers movies that have been popularized by Hollywood. The visual experiences that the Blu-ray offered were absolutely fantastic, while the included audio track, while cleanly done, could have been much better in terms of immersion. Special features are extremely minimal and really lacking in terms of providing more insight into the story or even the work that went into making this film. If you’re considering checking this film out, I would highly recommend renting it before you go picking it up for your collection. Braven is available on Blu-ray and DVD today!
Note: This Blu-ray was sent to us for review. This has not affected our judgement or editorial process in any way. Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this process.