The Entitled – Blu-ray Review

The Film:

When taken for face value, The Entitled is a movie that should kind of fail on every level. It’s a low budget, direct to video feature starring a few aged stars and a few up and coming ones. Even when looking at the cover of the Blu-Ray/DVD, it just looks generic. After watching it, you realize that this movie is far from a failure. The aged stars; Ray Liotta as Richard Nader, Victor Garber as Bob Vincent and Stephen McHattie as Clifford Jones, do a great job as three rich men who are meeting for a weekend with their kids in a house in the middle of the woods. The young up and comers; John Breger as Jeff Vincent, Dustin Milligan as Nick Nader and the lovely Laura Vandervoot as Hailey Jones are the kids and they, too do a great job. They are believable in their roles, and the roles are more than just spoiled rich kids. They are hostages as well. The person holding them hostage is Kevin Zegers playing Paul Dynan. The reason he’s taken these 3 rich kids hostage is because his mom is sick and they need money to pay their medical bills. Before the kidnapping, Paul finds out that the house is also being foreclosed. Paul is not working alone though. His accomplices are classmates of the three. Tatiana Maslany as Jenna and Devon Bostick as Dean Taylor join Paul.

The movie starts out with meeting each of the three groups of people. We meet Paul and his cohorts, the rich kids and the fathers. We see each of their lives and how different for one another they are. There is a strong contrast between the kidnappers and the rich kids. William Morrissey has crafted a script where we feel for the criminals since what they’re doing is wrong, but for the right reasons. That is until something goes terribly wrong. Paul, using a voice changer, calls the fathers to get them to pay $1 million each for the release of their child. While Richard and Clifford are at the house, Bob still hasn’t shown up yet. This leads to something bad happening to the hostages. The movie winds out of control after this point and it leads to a good twist ending that you don’t really see coming.

The acting in this movie is really well done and while the script becomes a bit generic, there are enough dips and turns in the script to make it feel fresh. The young actors in the movie are really fun to watch and Killer Film fans might recognize Kevin Zegers from the Dawn of the Dead remake. He seems to be one to watch and I await his future movies. The veteran actors do a good job and don’t take the viewers out of the movie. It’s easy for some older actors to be recognized and for fans to see them as past characters. Using two well known character actors like McHattie and Garber makes this possible. They really do a nice job in their roles and Ray Liotta is fantastic here. You forget your watching Henry Hill, and really believe you’re watching Richard Nader. The running time of 91 minutes helps the movie move at a great pace. It doesn’t feel overly long.

Overall the movie is a hoot to watch and it’s easy to get past the flaws and enjoy this movie.

The Blu-ray:

Audio/Video

The picture looks great. Aaron Woodley, the director, used different color schemes for each set of characters and they come across really nicely and crisp. The sound is great. I don’t have surround sound or anything fancy other than my HDTV speakers, but all dialogue can be heard, Tim Williams’ score comes across really well.

Special Features

Not overly packed, there’s no commentaries, which would have been nice, but there is a making of that runs about 15 minutes. It has interviews with Woodley and all the actors and covers the story, the character and the look of the movie. There is also an alternate ending that might have actually been a little better than what was seen.

The Flick: Rating:

The Blu-ray: Rating: