Misconduct

Released By: Lionsgate
Released On: April 19, 2016
Director: Shintaro Shimosawa
Cast:Josh Duhamel, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, Julia Stiles, Alice Eve
Year: 2016
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The Film:

Hotshot young lawyer Ben Cahill (Josh Duhamel) is on a winning streak, kicking a whole lot of ass and taking names in the courtroom. When he gets a social media friend request from Emily (Malin Akerman), a psychotic ex-girlfriend, however, his intelligence goes out the window and he accepts. Creeping her profile page doesn't do much to put him back on the righteous path, owing to the wealth of provocative cleavage photos she's stored online, which leads to him figuring that he should definitely take the night out (when his wife is at work) to meet up with his past flame. Never mind that she turned suicidal when Ben broke up with her, and certainly never mind the fact that his marriage is going well, and bring on multiple drinks with his ex...what could go wrong?

After a number of vodkas, Emily lets it slip why she's contacted him; she's dating the much-older Arthur Denning (Anthony Hopkins), head of a huge pharmaceutical company, a company whose new drug is killing off a whole lot of people. Despite the fact that Emily is firmly under Arthur's tyrannical thumb, she's appropriated a number of confidential emails from his laptop; emails that show he doctored certain bits of information that would have definitely resulted in the FDA shutting him down. Emily is convinced that Ben and his firm can take Arthur out of business permanently, and the only thing that she wants in return for the incriminating USB stick is Ben's "stick"...which she attempts to get up in her in a horribly drawn-out sex scene.

Putting the incident behind him, Ben approaches a senior partner at his firm named Charles Abrams (Al Pacino) a no-nonsense southern man with a really bad southern accent, and convinces him that they can take Denning down for fraud in a class action suit. With the promise of a nine-figure settlement dancing in his eyes, Abrams gives Ben the go-ahead, and that's where things really start to go wrong for the young hotshot. Threats from a mysterious Asian man (Byung-hun Lee) are scary, to be sure, but Ben encounters even more danger when he and his wife "coincidentally" run into Emily at a nightclub, with Emily pulling him aside to tell him she'll spill the beans about their awkward night of passion if he keeps ignoring her phone calls. Unfortunately for Ben, this kind of thing becomes known as a motive when Emily ends up dead and her corpse winds up in his bedroom, just as the police are kicking in his door.

Let's be honest, when you see the names Hopkins and Pacino at the top of the cast list, most notions of the stigma attached to "DTV" and "Directorial Debut" get put in the backseat. Even those big name actors who are past their prime can add a touch of class and pleasant nostalgia to the ugliest of films. Misconduct is not a film that benefits from the participation of heavy-hitters Pacino and Hopkins; the two actors, aside from not getting a lot of screen time, spend the time they are in front of the camera phoning in their performances. Pacino, in particular, sounds ridiculous with his N'awlins accent, and a scene where the two interact with each other makes me wonder if they were even in the same room together. In fact, that could be said about the majority of the interactions in Misconduct, where there's almost zero chemistry to be found in any of the relationships. Duhamel is particularly wooden, Akerman's tortured Emily lacks depth, and the always bad Julia Stiles manages to sink to new lows of suck. The end result? Not one of these characters comes across as likable.

Director Shintaro Shimosawa isn't much help here, either, going first and foremost for style, and then substance, with mixed results. Sure, some of his choices pay off with a cool, artistic look, but for the most part, they're convoluted and confusing...witness the aforementioned sex scene for the best example. Frederico Jusid's score doesn't help alleviate any of the confusion, coming across as intrusive and annoying throughout, with what sounds like botched cues and other mishaps. And I'll not give much more than a moment to the shoddy writing of Misconduct, with a "twist ending" directly and blatantly lifted from another film, with no shame. Misconduct lumbers to a silly and head-scratching finale, devoid of any sense of fulfillment.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Lionsgate brings Misconduct to Blu-ray (and HD download) in an AVC-encoded 2.40:1 transfer that looks solid for the most part. Detail is good, and night scenes retain clarity without blocking up and ugly blacks. The colour palette in the film is not particularly varied, due to the aesthetic, but the transfer is as solid as a newer film should be.

Audio is handled by an English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that keeps dialogue front and centre throughout, with no issues regarding coherence. I detected very little activity in the surrounds, and the lack of anything bass-heavy kept the subwoofer pretty dormant for the running time. Still, there are no issues with the track, and it delivers the material more than adequately.

Spanish, English, and English SDH subs are available.

First up in the extras is the Making of Misconduct (15:08), which manages to pull in just about every actor from the film, including heavy hitters Pacino and Hopkins, to discuss their characters and the plot of the film, interspersed with clips from the movie. Actors other than Pacino and Hopkins also talk about their excitement and apprehension in working with Pacino and Hopkins.

Next up are three short Deleted Scenes (3:26) from the film.

A Trailer for Misconduct, as well as a promo reel for other Lionsgate films is also available.

The Final Word:

Even the big boys, Pacino and Hopkins, can't unsink this boat. Shoddy acting and stolen plot twists make this solidly not recommended.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!