[wp-review id=”93698″]
Fresh Army recruits John Bartle and Daniel Murphy are about to finish boot. There next stop is the Iraq war and they have been picked by Sgt. Sterling to be his go-to guys. Sterling has been in the Middle East before and he sees something in the two. Before shipping out, Bartle and Murphy have a chance to see their families at a dinner provided by the training facility. Bartle doesn’t have the best home life and he doesn’t tell his mother about the dinner. However, he does make friends with Murphy’s mom and she tells him that if anything happens to her son, she want’s Bartle to be the one to break the news. Their time over there is nothing like they were expecting and they have to be on point to come out on the other side.
THE YELLOW BIRDS is directed by Alexandre Moors and he has done a lot of short films plus another feature called BLUE CAPRICE. This film has been adapted from the novel of the same name by Kevin Powers. This is a moving story that doesn’t glorify war but shows you that it is real and haunting.
Cast
Alden Ehrenreich – John Bartle
Tye Sheridan – Daniel Murphy
Jack Huston – Sergeant Sterling
Jennifer Aniston – Maureen Murphy
Toni Collette – Amy Bartle
Jason Patric – Captain Anderson
Carrie Wampler – Jenny Smith
Lee Tergesen – Jim Murphy
Olivia Crocicchia – Tess
VIDEO QUALITY:
The video is a 1080p AVC presentation. It has a digitally captured look with the way that the brighter lit scenes come off. There coloring is on the yellowish side with the arid areas during their tour and the colors seldom look brilliant. The details are sharp in the clothing, people’s gear, and facial hair. In the darker lit scenes, things look clumpy with artifacts and there are no solid blacks that I could see. Inconsistencies in the contrasting are apparent.
AUDIO QUALITY:
The audio is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that is very calm track until the gunfire begins. When one of the main firefights opens up, you have the M240 opening up on a street with separate MA41s shouting out and echoing thought out the area. In some of the other channels, you can hear the very different return fire from the lower street. LFEs hit during explosions and larger weapon fire. Effects are very clear with the voices and the score prioritized well.
SUPPLEMENTS & PACKAGING
-Reverberations of War: The Making of THE YELLOW BIRDS: This featurette explains the concept of the book with interviews of the people involved.
Disc Details
1 Blu-ray Disc
Digital copy
Running Time
94 mins
Edition Ratings
Rated R
Region Coding
Region A
Video Resolution
1080p AVC MPEG-4
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Audio Mixes
English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles
English SDH
Spanish
THE BOTTOM LINE:
THE YELLOW BIRDS is a compelling story and it is good to see such young actors like Alden Ehrenreich & Tye Sheridan in these roles. The Blu-ray itself has some issues in the video transfer but sounds excellent. There is only one extra on the disc and it does give some great info but I would like to know more about the production as a whole. For the movie alone, this is worth picking up.
