Blu-Ray Spotlight: The Siege
Daniel Stisen stars in this action homage from director Brad Watson.
From the outset a movie like The Siege can clue you in on what kind of experience to prepare for. In its cold open, a bus transporting a prisoner runs into something blocking the road. Action cinema veterans and neophytes can tell you what will happen next, and they would be absolutely correct. But the path this movie takes is like playing with a very enthusiastic poker player in possession of a good hand, but that someone has obvious tells that ruin any potential strategy. Predictability in action movies isn’t altogether a bad thing, but there’s not a lot else to confidently fall back on in The Siege’s case besides its action. And while it’s certainly inspired by the old-school action flicks of yore (let’s say solidly 80s through 90s for simplicity) its other elements can’t hold up the rest of the film.
The director, Brad Watson, cites Assault on Precinct 13 and Die Hard as major influences on Siege, and that comes as no surprise in how this is structured in a similar way. It has a simple job to do that presumably on-screen action and minimal dialogue can fulfill, which Siege checks off on its to-do list. The caliber of action films are always subjective (well, all films, really) but a lot of its merits rest on the strength of its archetypes and how willing its audience is to put conventional logic aside in favor of the parallel world the film occupies. It’s almost surprising Watson has not mentioned John Wick in the same breath as Precinct or Die Hard, as Walker (Daniel Stisen) botches a job and has to travel to a facility to lay low with other hitmen & soldiers for hire that have their own kooky character backstories. More on that later. For now, let’s take a look at what the disc release for The Siege has to offer.
Video
The Siege is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Shot on digital the camera quality transfer of this disc’s AVC-encoded picture translates fairly well in all respects. However the film often delivers a dirty yellow look in virtually all of its interior low-lit shots. It does attempt to mix up the color timing a little, with outdoor accents coloring part of the frame and the actors’ faces with a mixture of midnight blues and hot reds in places. The overuse of the same color filter on nearly all shots aid the sparseness of what we see in the movie’s sets. Which helps make the facility built for ruthless killers to lay low look as boring as possible, but doesn’t do much for its audience either in the long run.
Audio
There are two audio tracks on option here, a DTS HD 5.1 surround and a standard stereo track. Both deliver clarity and a good balance in dialogue, foley, and music both in the world and non-diegetic. The surround track has a more subtle sense of place than most action films and doesn’t move around quite a lot, but its dynamic range is healthy and impressive for a feature of this budget.
Special Features
Well Go USA provides a beefy behind the scenes extra (21 mins, 4 secs) that delves into the making-of and most actors talking about their experience on set and the characters they play. It’s a nice surprise to have something of this length on a release from Well Go, and going forward with however many Saban Films releases are slated for Well Go’s platform it would be nice to see more extra features come of this in the future.
Final Thoughts
The Siege is meant to be a simple action movie and it delivers on that. But some things stand out during the film that start to distract from its clear goal. It’s obvious that the process of shooting was very collaborative, not only between the director and the stunt choreographer but the actors and their own influences on the characters they play. But it does have the strange feeling of too many cooks in the kitchen that inadvertently robs the movie of a singular focus, that which could have enhanced its inherent simplicity. Based on viewers’ mileage with DTV action movies this could be a decent flavor-of-the-week watch or something to bring a group in to have fun with if it fails to deliver on an individual level.
The Siege releases on Blu-Ray and DVD on Tuesday, May 30th from Saban Films and Well Go USA. Instead of Amazon, I recommend supporting alternative retailers like DeepDiscount where you can order a copy online.
Disclaimer: Well Go USA has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
[this article was originally published on may 30, 2023 on celluloid consomme.]
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