Director: Theodore Melfi
Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts
Release Date: Now Available on Blu-Ray & DVD
A Review By: Kevin Lovell
Film Rating: 9/10
Disc Rating: 8/10
Synopsis:
Maggie (Melissa McCarthy), a single mother, moves into a new home in Brooklyn with her 12-year old son, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). Forced to work long hours, she has no choice but to leave Oliver in the care of their new neighbor, Vincent (Bill Murray), a retired curmudgeon with a desire for alcohol and gambling. An odd friendship soon blossoms between the improbable pair. Together with a pregnant stripper, named Daka (Naomi Watts), Vincent brings Oliver along on all the stops that make up his daily routine – the race track, a strip club, and the local dive bar. Vincent helps Oliver grow to become a man, while Oliver begins to see in Vincent something that no one else is able to: a misunderstood man with a good heart.
Vincent (Murray) is the kind of man who at first might come off as angry, anti-social and just downright mean, and that wouldn’t be too far from the truth either. When his new neighbors’ hired movers ruin his fence, yard and branch while moving in, struggling single mom Maggie (McCarthy) sees just how unlikeable he can be first hand, as does her son Oliver (Lieberher). Yet, the next day when Oliver is bullied and has his possessions including his house keys stolen, he goes to Vincent’s house for help which results in Vincent striking a deal with Maggie to babysit for her, for an hourly fee of course. Soon young Oliver begins to discover that there is much more to Vincent than initially meets the eye and these two complete opposites begin to form a unique bond.
Written and directed by Theodore Melfi, ‘St. Vincent’ also marks his feature length Hollywood film debut. Melfi does a fantastic job directing from his own script and seamlessly brings together a beautiful and remarkably well done film. This wonderful movie also benefits extraordinarily from the performances by such talented individuals as Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Terrence Howard, Naomi Watts and newcomer Jaeden Lieberher. The entirety of the cast delivers solid performances all around, although Bill Murray definitely steals the show here in a marvelous performance that is not to be missed, along with first time young actor Jaeden Lieberher who delivers a rare impressive first performance for a younger actor.
‘St. Vincent’ is a wonderful and heartwarming film that delivers plenty of laughs and a marvelous performance by the incredibly talented Bill Murray, among others. This tale of the most unlikely of friendships will have you laughing and smiling along with these two as they make their way across the town in the most absurd and inappropriate places to bring a child, along with a few good ones. I give ‘St. Vincent’ high praise, this incredible film, combined with Murray’s fantastic performance make this a definite must see.
VIDEO:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘St. Vincent’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks pretty great as a whole, the colors are sharp and the characters, scenery and everything else present on screen at any given time are all clean and detailed without any notable artifacts or other detracting issues to speak of noticeable throughout; overall a very solid high definition video presentation.
AUDIO:
The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This lossless soundtrack isn’t too active with the surrounding channels, but it does do a more than capable job doing with just what it’s intended to. The dialogue and any other activity occurring throughout the film is always clean, crisp and perfectly discernable at all times and while it may not be an overly active soundtrack as a whole, it takes advantage of the other channels on occasion by letting the music and other elements spread throughout which contributes nicely to some of the already more emotional moments. Overall this is a more than capable 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtrack that delivers on pretty much every level expected from the film.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Blu-Ray release of ‘St. Vincent’ doesn’t include too much in the way of bonus content, although it does include a couple of nice, worthwhile extras. Included on the release are 12 Deleted Scenes (running approximately 10 minute’s total) and a Featurette (or dedication) of sorts titled ‘Bill Murray is St. Vincent: The Patron Saint of Comedy’ which runs just short of 20 minutes and is a pretty entertaining watch.
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