Explicit Ills - Blu Ray [Blu-ray]

Before anyone gets too upset, the star rating reflects the product rating, not necessarily the content or film making quality. This is a passion piece with poverty activism as its theme, and understandably the director wants to get his message out there, but the Blu package was not utilized in the slightest.

The story follows twelve people in the heart of Philadelphia living out their lives, good and bad, over the events of one summer (2007). Each story gets an introduction (some longer than others) of what to expect, with the last character being introduced at the 37 minute mark. The Crash-esque style editing mixes urban music, painting art reflecting the characters, an assortment of individual camera work in each story (camera pulls, hand held pans, steady-cams) and slightly interlaced stories. This movie deviates from all of the stories having any connection except for the activism march at the end, so do not expect things to come together otherwise.

I did not care for some of the characters (for what the story was trying to convey about fighting poverty) as they ingest/inhale every drug they come across, are typically in a delusional state in each sequence, but then we are supposed to care that they are marching? There were some excellent performances by the young crowd, but there were too many characters to get enough back story and not enough time given to see the outcomes of any one subplot.

There are no special features whatsoever, except for a few paragraphs about what the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign Outreach is about. The picture quality is DVD level without any upgraded clarity. The sound is fine and the outer channels really only get used with the music mix. The cover art and description do not appear to be entirely accurate (Rated R for "some" drug use? - Throughout the story we see a variety of characters taking a bunch of drugs 10 different ways); the description says "DVD" features so the Blu cover wasn't given any treatment; since this was an activist film I expected for there to be tons of material and documentaries about the making of and the cause, but they did nothing.

A realistic film with a few good performances, but not a solid Blu. Usually I would say save your money and get the DVD, but today the DVD costs way more than the BD, so maybe it might work out better for you.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review  3.0 out of 5 stars