It’s been an amazingly odd few years with apocalyptic tales popping up all over the place. I’ve seen romantic apocalyptic tales to tales about the unleashing of the beasts within us when we figure there is nothing left to hold us to our long followed civility. 4:44 Last Day On Earth is, well, nothing.

We enter the story of Cisco (William Dafoe; Boondock Saints) and Skye (Shanyn Leigh; Public Enemies), two people closeted in their apartment in New York City as they await the end of the world at, you guessed it, 4:44. Skye spends most of her time painting and watching spiritualists on her ipad talk about their theories on life and existence. Meanwhile Cisco skypes with friends and family and keeps his television set tuned to the news. Both of their media devices seem to be the voice of the environment as we hear tid bits about how we are destroying the Earth, and how we care to much about material things when we should be spending our time loving one another and healing the wounds we’ve left on Mother Earth.

The film is a simple day in the life look at two people going about their boring day, having sex here and there, painting stuff, having odd collapses in the face of their impending doom, all enveloped in a message about environmental dangers brought on by man’s neglect. Eventually we get a stray character here or there and at one point Cisco leaves the confines of the couples apartment, but other then that the atmosphere of the film is extremely limited and so absolutely boring that I can’t help but feel 4:44 isn’t much of a movie at all and probably some sort of acting exercise that somehow someone thought would be good for public viewing. They were wrong, but how did it look on Blu-Ray?

PICTURE AND AUDIO QUALITY:
4:44 has the potential to be one of the most amazing BD transfers I’ve ever seen. Colors are magnificent in the film while we peruse the couples apartment. Red’s are deep and sharp, the flecks of color in Dafoe’s eyes really shine, and the artwork Skye develops over the course of the film really looks fine. Clarity is amazing and definition really helps showcase the amazing natural color and textures of everything around the apartment. It all looks so amazingly good from individual hair strands on a young Vietnamese delivery boy to clothing design to facial features.

Unfortunately the outside world isn’t as grand. Color seems to drop in quality and issues such as haloing and what not pop up, especially in the night time sky. Line definition, especially around the characters, takes a bit of a dive as well. I read that outside of the apartment the director relied on green screen technology to help with the closing effects of the film. This could be the reason why quality drops a bit. Still, with the film taking place 90% in the couples apartment your not really forced to endure to much muckuppery. 

Audio, for me at least, was absolutely fantastic. I watched the movie with the default audio which is the dts-HD MA 5.1 option. Dialogue is clear and the films music has quite a punch when it kicks in, but what most impressed me about the films audio track was the ambient quality. There is always this low rumbling sound of cars and trucks muddled by brick and glass going on that surrounds your movie viewing space that really adds a new level of immersion to the film. I couldn’t help but check outside of my window a few times before I caught on that it was actually the film. When trucks go by my house it resonates with a deep bass sound and that was pretty regular throughout the film. I really enjoyed that aspect even if I thought the film itself was rubbish.

BONUS FEATURES:
~Trailer