Kill the Irishman Blu-ray Review

Posted June 17th, 2011 by Brandon A. DuHamel

Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Video Codec: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p/24
Audio Codec: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, Spanish Dolby 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Region: A (Region-Locked)
Rating: R
Discs: 1
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Blu-ray Release Date: June 14, 2011
List Price: $34.99

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Overall

The Film

Video Quality

Audio Quality

Supplemental Materials

Click thumbnails for high-resolution 1920X1080p screen captures

(Screen captures are lightly compressed with lossy JPEG thus are meant as a general representation of the content and do not fully reveal the capabilities of the Blu-ray format)

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The Film

An addictive walk through Cleveland’s criminal underbelly of the 1970s, Kill the Irishman is a provocative look at the man credited for bringing the hammer down on the golden age of the mafia. A biopic about Irish-American Danny Greene based on Rick Porello’s book, To Kill the Irishman: The War that Crippled the Mafia, the film charts Greene’s (Ray Stevenson) rise from neighborhood thug to corrupt union boss, mob strong arm, and finally leader of his own criminal enterprise. When Greene decided to stop taking orders from the Italian mafia in Cleveland and New York, it sparked a war and series of attempts on the seemingly indestructible Greene’s life that would lead to numerous mafia leaders being killed and the collapse of the Italian syndicates across the country.

Kill the Irishman is no Goodfellas and certainly not the Godfather, but it hits a home run for pure gritty, working class crime action. The film also stars Vincent D’Onofrio (TV’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent), Linda Cardellini (Brokeback Mountain) and Paul Sorvino (Goodfellas).

Video Quality

Irishman was shot in HD with Sony F23 cameras and the film takes on a purposely gritty, at times de-saturated look. Surprisingly, the “noise” looks less electronic than it looks like film-grain, although there are also places where the image looks so clean in this 1080p AVC encodement that you just know it must be an HD production. Still, this is a strong, reference quality transfer on Blu-ray with no hindrances to enjoyment.

Audio Quality

The main soundtrack is a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix that remains front-heavy from the very beginning, but that’s not to say it doesn’t pack some punch. Right from the first scene’s car bomb, there’s a lot of heft in the bass and a wide soundstage. Dialogue is relatively clean though there a re a few moments where some slight crackle can be heard.

Supplemental Materials

There aren’t many supplements offered here, but the hour-long documentary on the real-life Danny Greene is definitely worth watching.

Danny Greene: The Rise and Fall of the Irishman (1.78:1; 480i/60; 1:00.27)
Trailer (1.78:1; 1080p/24)

The Definitive Word

Overall:

A worthy crime drama with some good action that is filled with more legend than biography on the real-life Danny Greene, Kill the Irishman is a cool way to waste ninety-minutes of your time.