Danny Trejo (Machete) is Frank ‘Bullet’ Marasco, the toughest undercover cop in LA. Whether busting bad guys on the streets or in the underground MMA, nothing’s off limits to get the job done. This no-holds-barred action thriller, packed with typical Trejo humour, sees the body count just keep rising as the hard-as-nails cop takes on a ruthless cartel in a race against time to save his family.
Years earlier Bullet put notorious drug baron Carlito Kane’s son behind bars. Now the ruthless Kane (Jonathan Banks, Breaking Bad) hatches a twisted plan to save him by kidnapping Bullet’s grandson – but he’s messed with the wrong guy! Kane and his men are about to learn that, when the stakes are high, all it takes is one Bullet.
Riding on the tail of the Machete films, Danny Trejo manages to get top billing now for a range of DTV films that he has appeared in that seem suited to him. Whilst the film is pretty much a by the numbers crime thriller, the story doesn’t exactly offer anything new and appears to be something put together to keep Trejo in the limelight. The story itself I found a bit dull. That’s my personal opinion. Apart from a few decent gun fights put together (even adding a bit of slo-mo effect to them) it doesn’t really deliver in all honesty. However, Danny Trejo did put in a pretty good performance and proves that he is not a one trick pony. Compared to his performance in Machete Kills recently (which despite the craziness and Grindhouse aspects of the film, he pretty much slept walk his way through it), his performance as Frank Marasco was pretty good and made the character likeable.
Bullet arrived on Blu-ray with a 1080/50i MPEG4-AVC codec that preserves the films original 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Shot on a low budget digitally, the video transfer for bullet is generally good. The film has some razor sharp detail to it with facial close ups (especially Danny Trejo’s) looking especially good. Colours whilst not exactly vivid are rendered nicely giving the film a natural look to it. Bullet tends to sway towards the grain-free digital style instead of actually looking like a film though. The only drawbacks I could find to the video presentation is that blacks tend to be crushed with detail being completely lost in shot. Examples like Bullet’s black leather jacket has no texture seen in some shots. Some interior shots also have a diffused type softness to them which did become a bit distracting in some scenes.
Bullet is presented on Blu-ray with an English DTS-MA 5.1 audio track. The audio mix on this is pretty good for a direct to video release. The surround effects were pretty impressive with lots of panning around the room during the gun fights. LFE usage gave a bit of impact to the action scenes and never overpowered the overall mix. The music came across with a bit of power whenever it was used during the film kicking the speakers into action. The only issue I had with the audio mix was that the dialogue seemed to be mixed a tad low for my liking. It won’t give the speakers a workout but it does the job nicely
Trailer (01:26) : the only bonus feature on the disc is the film’s original trailer. Presented in 1080/50i with Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio
Bullet is another entry on the IMDB list of Danny Trejo’s career as leading star after building his reputation over the years as the memorable supporting character. Whilst the actual story doesn’t offer anything new, Danny Trejo does some good work with the character and some of the action scenes are pretty decent which makes the film half enjoyable. The audio and visual on the disc gives us a good presentation of the film but not without issues.
