Dead Wrong

Dead-Wrong
Dead Wrong

A timid mob attorney portrayed by Rob Schneider (SNL) suffers greatly from the events in the criminal thriller Dead Wrong. The star behind the classic movies that include Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo makes a serious shift in his acting career with a surprisingly good outcome. Rick Bieber, the writer and director of this movie, has created a crime-thriller such as Elmore Leonard featuring veteran Hollywood players, and he did fine here. It is best described as a low-budget Goodfellas with unsophisticated subplots of child abduction and insurance rip-offs.

Dead Wrong’s major roles are played by famous faces Katrina Bowden (30 Rock) and Cress Williams (Black Lightning). Schneider takes on a central part, however, it is just one aspect of the whole picture. Chet Hanks makes an explosive performance in the role of a dangerous crooked mobster. First, let us remind you that Chet’s father is a world superstar Tom Hanks, and Chet used to be notorious for the half-joking Rap “White Boy Summer” music that had its minor success in the early years of this decade until this turn to acting.

On the outside, it looks like Billy (Derek Smith) and Barbara (Katrina Bowden) are in a perfect marriage. However, there is more to it than meets the eye, especially with Billy, who appears calm and collected, though he is anything but. He has partnered in business with his childhood friend Jacko (Chet Hanks) who is also a mobster living in the area. On the side, the husband also has an affair with Barbara’s sister (Chelsea Debo). Barbara wishes to have a child, but Billy does not see any prospect of having kids in the near future and is quite happy with their childless status quo.

Ethan Boggs (Rob Schneider) is one of the lawyers who can already feel a noose tightening around his neck in the form of immense debt he owes to the mafia and resorts to illegal baby adoptions to make extra money. Billy lures children off the streets for his home-based profit-making scheme which involves selling babies to the highest bidder. Bitter in the deal, Boggs reluctantly goes along, while doing what he can to appease the mafia leader.

Supposedly based on a novel, Dead Wrong has a solid cast playing entertaining characters. With lots of plot details inserted and many twists, the second half of the film is more of a classic noir film. There’s also a bit of humor and irony concerning those people who hire other people to help them with the media because they think it’s done to help out the victim of the system.

There are funny moments mainly thanks to Rob Schneider but the suspense is many times more stereotyped mafia drama. Violent thugs, beautiful women, and a hint of cheesiness. Mostly remembered from his SNL days and a few big-screen roles, Schneider proves to be quite good in this more serious role.

From time to time, Dead Wrong seems to be an interesting but rather average mafia action with quite a talented ensemble cast. The irony of the matter is that out of nowhere Chet Hanks the rookie actor stands out as a real mob with a sense of loyalty through sheer brutality stealing the movie from such measures in Hollywood. Possibly Chet has some acting genes in him given that both of his parents are excellent actors in Hollywood. Or maybe it is something about the genes.

Dead Wrong from Mill Creek comes out on Blu-ray with a good picture aspect ratio thanks to digital filmmaking. The main feature has a time length of one hour and fifty minutes and it shares the same space with a director’s version of just one hour and thirty-four minutes. Both versions are encoded in the variant AVC with banding and posterization.

There’s no argument about the detail of the image without any reservation. Both cuts of the film have the same picture quality or display resolution. The only things that look bad in Dead Wrong are some awful abnormalities in effects. Some of the most ridiculous fake blood ever witnessed in an indie movie, one where a Troma Production may not fully capture the torture of a character.

The main feature is accompanied by a rather ordinary, simple surround mix. Dead Wrong’s audio brings out sounds with clear voices and efficient dialogue alongside minimal sound design elements. There is not much volume in the soundstage of the audio, and immersion can barely be called a primary objective. The dull mix is also accompanied by low levels of surround support and poor subwoofer involvement.

Mill Creek, however, offers the BD almost without any additional features. The only additional content we receive is the so-called “director’s cut” version of the Dead Wrong. This version is materially shorter than the feature itself but a few cuts and some alternate music cues do distinguish it so most of the original is pitched. I’d suggest that the original cut is better than the director’s cut.

I should disclose all the potential conflicts of interest in this case the label supplied this Blu-ray to me to review. This has not affected the editorial policy of DoBlu in any significant way. For a full description of our policy regarding criticism and all touchy materials, have a look at DoBlu’s About Us screen.

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