The East Blu-ray Review

The East Blu-ray Review

Released on September 17, 2013 by 20th Century Fox 

Movie: 4.5/5

The East is a slow burning drama/thriller featuring the talented Brit Marlin, along with Alexander Skarsgärd and Ellen Page. The film has been praised by critics, and it is one which very accurately represents current world problems from the point of view of a undercover company agent posing as an extreme activist. 

Sarah is an ex-FBI agent who has quit to apply to a secretive and highly competitive job position in one of the most powerful, and rich, security companies. The company's job is to search, target, and eradicate threats to other powerful companies. Sarah gets the job, and she begins by trying to infiltrate a group that calls itself "The East". After posing as a homeless person for some days and getting into some trouble she is finally taken where "The East" resides. The members are a small group of adults that have taken it upon themselves to seek those responsible for lucrative companies’ selfish actions, like CEO’s. The actions of these companies negatively affect the environment and especially other people. They highlight the fact that these negative effects do not come near the people responsible for these effects, and thus it is easy for them to keep doing it while harming others. But they must be held accountable. This is the core belief of “The East”.

Once Sarah successfully infiltrates the group she notices how good they are at being subtle while preparing and acting upon their goals, right until their goals provide their desired effects. Then their actions come to light for the whole world to see, but by then they have hidden again without leaving any trace behind. However, their kind of extreme activism has some serious consequences, creating tensions within the group. Sarah also notices the wrongdoings of the people in charge of the companies “The East” is trying to hold accountable, and she finds herself feeling unsure about how to act when faced with difficult decisions. “The East’s” actions are very extreme, putting lives in danger, but so are the companies’ wrongdoings, which also put lives in serious risk. What is she supposed to do in these kinds of situations? Her job is to eradicate these threats for multi-million dollar companies, but doing so means defending them and letting these companies get away with their transgressions, while helping “The East” would badly affect the people in charge of the companies, including innocent bystanders; and she could also lose her job. 

There is also her personal life. Sarah finds herself getting attached to the members of “The East”, especially to one of them. Taking on these undercover assignments also means leaving home and her boyfriend alone for several days at a time. This takes a toll on him as well as her, and she begins to feel self-conscious as to why she likes that job. Even though Sarah has a positively strong personality (which is probably what helps her the most at doing her job) she still feels and suffers the emotional impact of the assignments. 

Even with the PG-13 rating (and nothing visually too graphic), the film manages to instill slight, but real, fear and paranoia in the viewer, provided of course he or she allows good thinking as part of the viewing. An example is one of the “jams” (what they call accomplishing making rich people accountable for their bad actions). The group discovered a while ago a drug that is being massed produced to help cure a common disease in many countries. It has recently been approved by the FDA as being safe to prescribe in the U.S. “The East” has decided that they will give the producers, and owners of the drug, a taste of their own medicine, literally. They infiltrate a party where these people are celebrating the approval of the drug. While acting as normal guests they place a liquid dosage of the drug into many of the drinks of the guests. Sarah realizes what they are doing moments before the guests drink it, and not knowing much about it (since “The East” has left her in the dark about their operation due to being new) she calls her supervisor. But she tells her nothing will happen; the drug would not have been approved if it was actually dangerous. 

Mild spoilers ahead:

Most of them drink the dosage. After a few days the trespass reaches national news, and one of the spokespersons of the company (a woman who was at the party and ingested a dosage of the drug) says she feels fine with only mild side effects. Days later a youtube video is discovered that shows the woman is dying slowly with scary and painful effects.The listed side effects on the container actually imply that it can lead to a slow and terrible death. Thus, the company is technically not doing anything illegal; the person taking it is solely responsible for reading said side effects and deciding whether or not to take the drug. The thing is, if it was not actually safe the FDA would not approve it, or at least most people would think so. After all, that is the main purpose of the the FDA’s existence. Knowing that the selling of drugs with terrible, and life-threatening, side effects happens in many countries where the governments do not regulate the drug market well (and the companies hold a lot of power), it was disturbing to see and hear the woman in the video. This makes the situation very real and near to the viewer, and knowing the preceding facts one has to wonder if such a thing will happen to us or someone close to us (remember the commercial of an anti-depressant which lists the drug’s side effects might actually worsen the depression? Could this not lead to suicide? Granted, it is not as bad as what happens to the woman in the movie, but it does hint the film’s scenario as being a very real possibility). 

End of mild spoilers.

There is another jam planned to seek justice for something more disturbing. Perhaps because in such a situation the people being directly affected by it are helpless, and most of them will either develop terrible diseases and/or die (think something like the story in Erin Brockovich, which actually happened). 

The film stays within the realms of the real and possible from the start. This greatly helps keep its relevance and attention from the viewer. The ending is very suspenseful and is also kept realistic; something that in my opinion is hard to pull off and which I have only seen very few times (however, nothing will top the highly edge-of-your-seat, but still very realistic, climax of series two of Forbrydelsen, but more on that later). The East succeeds in being interesting, thrilling, relevant, and also realistic, and this combination rarely happens. Overall it is a great accomplishment. 

Picture Quality: 4.5/5

This is the kind of picture quality in a blu-ray that is boring to review. Not because it has anything that is actually bad: it contains the good aspects of what you would expect from a recently-filmed movie, but it does not achieve anything new or great that makes it stand out from the rest. It is just ordinary. The movie has plenty of bleak colors (many shades of grey, dark brown, blue, etc.) and are all produced with much fidelity. Black levels are very good also but they do waver a bit a few times towards dark grey (this might be from the source and not the transfer since it was filmed with digital cameras). Contrast is kept very well balanced and there is plenty of shadow detail. This is good since there a lot of scenes that take place in low-light settings or at night. Skin colors are constantly kept realistic, and even if some post-processing was done to the picture to achieve its drab look, it did not affect skin tones. Detail and delineation are very good also, but nothing great. Overall a very proficient visual transfer.

Audio Quality: 4/5

The blu-ray’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track accurately represents the movie’s sound mix, and that is both good and slightly bad. This is where the transfer shows the production’s budget a little. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but there are parts in the movie where it clearly could have sounded better. For the most part it is great though. Voices are very clear, as well as the score. Atmospheric effects are good also but nothing outstanding. In the more dramatic sequences (where there is some action and loud effects) is where it comes off as a little dull. It does not become distorted or unbalanced, it is just a bit too reserved, and not in a good way. When it comes down to it though, this can easily be overlooked as the movie has very few of these moments, after all it is a slow-burning drama/thriller. 

Special Features: 3/5

Extras are pretty standard. It has some short behind-the-scenes videos with one focusing on the movie’s theme of morality. It is titled Examining the Moral Grey and I found it to be the most interesting. There are also some deleted scenes, as well as the theatrical trailer and a sneak peek. 

Overall: 4.5/5

The East is a smart drama and thriller that keeps itself true to real life while also injecting a very good dose of suspense to the story. Brit Marling gives an impressive performance and the rest of the cast are great also. The story is very relevant right now and this only makes it more interesting and captivating. Video is very good with nothing bad worth mentioning, and the audio is satisfactory overall, although it could have been a little better. The East is highly recommended. 

Note: the screen captures of the blu-ray above should not be taken to be good representatives of the quality of the transfer as they have a lower resolution than the blu-ray, they are compressed, and in motion it may look different.