Film
Marine sniper Brandon Beckett (Tom Berenger), along with DEA agent Kate Estrada (Danay Garcia) are sent to Colombia to capture drug kingpin Jesús Morales (Juan Sebastian Calero) for return to the US, and kill El Diablo (Felipe Calero), and the sniper hired by Morales to eliminate his competition.
The film makes a brave attempt at a top notch action feature, and so falls solidly into the category of lazy afternoon fun, when one does not want to exert oneself following an intricate plot. While the characters are well acted, as with films like this, they have very little substance to them.
The action scenes are very low key, apart from one or two kills via sniper, which has the camera linger for a while. This aside, the climax of the film itself is quite a letdown, building no tension, and providing no satisfaction for the viewer, with the incredibly hollow characters in the movie.
Sniper: Ultimate Kill is a run of the mill, low budget action, that would possibly appeal to fans of the genre, but not that many others. Watch it if you’re really bored.
Disc
Overall, the disc is technically average., and a dual-layer disc. It is, however, a pity that the bitrate on video was not a bit higher, as there is very little of the second layer used, meaning much more space was in fact available for use.
Sniper: Ultimate Kill is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.
Video
Video is encoded at a decent average bitrate. There are no visible artefacts on-screen, but in some more detailed scenes, there is a small amount of colour bleed evident. Colours could be a bit more vibrant, as they tend to feel a bit washed out at times. Details in darker scenes is adequate.
Viewers with the necessary hardware or software could scale up to a larger or higher resolution screen, should they wish.
Audio
Audio is encoded at decent bitrate, and presented in a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Dialogue is clear via the centre speaker, with the weight of the soundtrack carried via the front channels. The surround channels carry ambient sounds, and could have been used a bit more for discrete sounds.
Navigation
Navigation is simple, and easy to follow. The main menus is static, with accompanying background music. There are text links to play the main feature, for languages, scene selections, and to play the disc previews again.
The languages sub-menu has a text list of audio languages to choose from, and a list of subtitles, including for the for the hearing impaired. There are several subtitle menus, with a long list of languages to choose from.
The scene selection sub-menus each contain four large, still, colour thumbnails, for a total of sixteen chapters. Navigation between the chapter sub-menus is via a forward or backward arrow navigation button, with a button in the shape of a sniper reticle used to return to the main menu.
While the various chapter thumbnails are numbered, they are not labelled, nor is there any information provided via a package insert, so navigating to a particular part of the main feature would require some guesswork, or for the viewer to use their own hardware or software bookmarks.
Bonus Features
There are no bonus features, except trailers for Starship Troopers: Traiter of Mars, and Resident Evil: Vendetta, which autoplay at the beginning of the disc.
These can be individually skipped, or fast forward. They can also be accessed again via the main disc menu.
Packaging
Packaging for the disc is rather standard, with a poster, film title, and main cast listing on the front. On the back are a few stills from the main feature, a short synopsis, and some of the usual technical information found on most disc packages.
There are no package inserts, such as chapter listing.
