Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Hellfighters (Mill Creek Entertainment) Blu-ray Review

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Hellfighters (Mill Creek Entertainment) Blu-ray Review



    Released by: Mill Creek Entertainment
    Released on: May 4th, 2021.
    Director: Andrew V. McLaglen
    Cast: John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Vera Miles, Jay C. Flippen
    Year: 1968
    Purchase From Amazon

    Hellfighters - Movie Review:

    Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and released to theaters in 1968, Hellfighters top bills John Wagne as Chance Buckman, a tough as nails Texan whose job is to put out fires when they start to get out of control at some of the more remote oil rig locations used by the company that employs him. Chance doesn't do all of this work by himself, however. He's got equally tough guys like Jack Lomax (Jay C. Flippen), Joe Horn (Bruce Cabot) and Greg Parker (Jim Hutton) by his side every step of the way.

    Chance has also been divorced for a couple of decades now, and then end of his marriage still weighs heavy on his heart. When he isn't putting out ridiculously dangerous oil rig fires, he's trying to win back Madelyn (Vera Miles), the ex-wife that he just can't seem to get over. She divorced him way back when not because she didn't love him, but because the constant dangers inherent in his job just became too much for her to deal with all of the time.

    As their stories play out, things get complicated when Greg winds up getting romantically involved with Tish (Katharine Ross), Chance's daughter. As Chance tries to take a desk job and settle down after getting injured on the job, it looks like he and Madelyn just might make it after all, that is until a giant fire breaks out at an oil rig in Venezuela.

    Hellfighters is two-hours of solid entertainment. Some of the acting from the supporting players is less than perfect and you won't have any trouble figuring out how all of this is going to end, but McLaglen, the man who gave us The Wild Geese and the Joe Don Baker classic Mitchell, paces the film well and does a great job of making the firefighting scenes seem believably exciting and incredibly dangerous. Made in the day and age where you had to stage scenes like these using only practical effects, it's impressive to some of the massive fireballs that the effects team conjure up for this picture, they look way cooler and much more realistic than a lot of similar computer generated effects used in modern movies. These scenes are the highlights of the picture, and are far more memorable than the rather pedestrian dramatic and romantic subplots (though to be fair, those subplots are effective at stringing together the different action set pieces).


    Wayne is pretty good in the lead and he has a decent enough chemistry with Miles in this picture to make their relationship work, despite some obvious clichés evident in how it all plays out. Production values are good pretty much across the board, and the film features some nice camerawork and a pretty rousing score that does a nice job of making the action scenes more tense, and subsequently making some of the scenes of drama and romance a little hokier than they should be. Overall, this is an uneven film, but a pretty entertaining one.

    Hellfighters - Blu-ray Review:

    Hellfighters arrives on Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment in an AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.35.1 widescreen taking up 21GBs of space on a 25GB disc. This looks to have come from an older master so it isn't reference quality but it is quite good. Detail is pretty strong if not at the level a new scan could have provided, while color reproduction looks quite strong. There are some minor compression artifacts in some of the darker scenes but you probably won't notice them if you aren't looking for them. Black levels are good and there are no issues with any noise reduction or edge enhancement.

    The 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Mono track is in English. Optional subtitles are provided in English only. Sound quality is fine, the levels are balanced and the dialogue stays clear. There could have been maybe a bit more depth to some of the action scenes but the score sounds solid. No problems to report.

    There are no extra features included on this disc, just a static menu.

    Hellfighters - The Final Word:

    Hellfighters may have some flaws but it's still a pretty entertaining way to spend two-hours. Wayne is in fine form here and a lot of fun to watch, and the firefighting scenes are really impressively staged. Mill Creek's Blu-ray is barebones, but it looks decent and sounds quite good and, as is typical with the label's output, it's hard to argue with the price.

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






























    • Andrew Monroe
      #1
      Andrew Monroe
      Pallid Hands
      Andrew Monroe commented
      Editing a comment
      I've got the old Universal BD, this is probably the same. I like this film, mainly due to the cast. It's fun to see Wayne and long time co-stars Bruce Cabot and Jay C. Flippen. As you say, it's kind of uneven (and probably a bit too long), but the firefighting scenes are done well.
    Posting comments is disabled.

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Quality X
    Released on: February 28th, 2024.
    Director: Chuck Vincent
    Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
    Year: 1982
    Purchase From Amazon

    Roommates – Movie Review:

    Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
  • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Radiance Films
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
    Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
    Year: 1969-1972
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

    Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
    ...
    03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
  • Nemesis (MVD Rewind Collection) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: MVD Rewind Collection
    Released on: January 8th, 2019.
    Director: Albert Pyun
    Cast: Olivier Gruner, Jennifer Gatti, Tim Thomerson
    Year: 1992
    Purchase From Amazon

    Nemesis – Movie Review:

    Albert Pyun's 1992 film Nemesis takes place in the future of 2027. Here it's common for criminals and cops alike to ‘upgrade' themselves using cybernetic bits and pieces in an effort to make themselves more than human. In this world
    ...
    03-13-2024, 11:22 AM
  • Bloodmoon (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Severin Films
    Released on: February 1st, 2024.
    Director: Alec Mills
    Cast: Leon Lissek, Christine Amor, Helen Thomson, Ian Williams
    Year: 1990
    Purchase From Amazon

    Bloodmoon – Movie Review:

    The directorial debut of Alec Mills, the cinematographer on such films as Polanski’s MacBeth and Return Of The Jedi, 1990’s Bloodmoon, a later period slasher film, is set around St. Elizabeth’s, an all-girls Catholic School
    ...
    03-07-2024, 03:55 PM
  • The Shining (Scream Factory) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Scream Factory
    Released on: March 12th, 2024.
    Director: Mick Garris
    Cast: Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay, Melvin Van Peebles, Courtland Mead
    Year: 1997
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Shining – Movie Review:

    Stephen King somewhat famously didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, The Shining, so he signed on to work with Director Mick Garris on this three-part TV mini-series take which hit the airwaves
    ...
    03-07-2024, 03:50 PM
  • Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny (Shout! Factory) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Shout! Factory
    Released on: February 13th, 2024.
    Director: Liam Lynch
    Cast: Jack Black, Kyle Gass
    Year: 2006
    Purchase From Amazon

    Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny – Movie Review:

    Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny opens with a prologue where we meet a young man named Jables (JB, played by Jack Black) who, despite his strict religious upbringing, only wants to rock n roll. When his father tears down all of his posters
    ...
    02-29-2024, 06:17 PM
Working...
X