Lost in the Sun (Blu-ray) (2015)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Trailer-x 4 for other Eagle Entertainment releases
Rating
Year Of Production	2015
Running Time	95:27
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Trey Nelson
Studio Distributor	Eagle Entertainment	Starring	Josh Duhamel Josh Wiggins Lynn Collins Emma Fuhrmann
Case	Standard Blu-ray
RPI	?	Music	Daniel Hart

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 5.1
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Thirteen year old Louis (Josh Wiggins) has just attended his mother’s funeral in a small Texas town. With a suitcase, a pair of skis and about $6,000 in cash he is taken to the bus station to catch a bus to his grandparent’s house in New Mexico. Also at the funeral was John (Josh Duhamel), just out of prison, living in his car and owing money to a crocked loan shark. John has some connection with Louis and his family and at the bus station offers to drive Louis to his grandparents. Due to special circumstances Louis accepts, and thus begins a road trip across Texas where Louis is introduced to guns and armed robberies. As the two live rough and switch cars to evade the police, they get a ride with Mary (Lynn Collins) and her thirteen year old daughter Rose (Emma Fuhrmann) and gradually John’s true motives are revealed.

     Lost in the Sun is writer / director Trey Nelson’s first feature although he has numerous credits directing TV shows. Lost in the Sun is about regrets, loss and family and a coming of age story although it is principally a road movie, a genre as old as Homer. As a result this is a film with the usual episodic nature of the genre, such as the sequence with a pastor, or the meeting with Mary and Rose. But Nelson does have aspirations towards making an “artish” film, so Lost in the Sun is leisurely paced, with minor flashbacks, and the camera lingers on faces in the crowd or the Texas landscape. That Lost in the Sun mostly succeeds is due to the superior acting, the score and the beauty of the cinematography.

     For most of its running time Lost in the Sun is a two hander which develops the relationship between Josh Duhamel and Josh Wiggins. Duhamel is wonderful as a small time crook, a man with a past full of mistakes and a present full of regrets but a man who acknowledges that “there are certain things that I just can't change about myself”. He is charming and a little bit sinister, his real intentions towards Louis unclear. Wiggins is also very good, as he comes of age on the trip. The beautiful score by Daniel Hart is haunting, wistful, plaintive and poignant, never going over the top but aiding the development of the film’s moods. Finally, the Texas landscape, the bare hills, dusty plains, fields and small towns, is shot in stunning widescreen by DP Robert Barocci; his CV has mainly TV but here with Lost in the Sun he shows he is more than capable with the widescreen aspect.

     In Lost in the Sun both John and Louis are alone, searching for a family. For a while, with Mary and Rose, the four act like a family, but for John his past mistakes and past indiscretions are never far away. While parts of the film meander, the resolution is fitting, both sad and satisfying.

Video

     Lost in the Sun is presented in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio, close to the original 2.35:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 AVC code.

     Shot using the Sony F55 camera, Lost in the Sun has firm detail and some beautiful sunsets. The colours are natural but have that digital glossy sheen, while night scenes under lights have that yellowish tinge. Skin tones however generally look fine, blacks are solid although some shadow detail was indistinct. Brightness and contrast are consistent.

     I did not notice any marks or artefacts.

     No subtitles are available.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is English DTS-HD MA 5.1.

     Dialogue is always clear and easy to understand. Gunshots were crisp while the surrounds and rears were not overused and mostly featured the music plus occasional ambience, such as thunder. The subwoofer added some bass to the music and thunder.

     The score by Daniel Hart is beautiful; wistful, plaintive and poignant it aids the development of the film’s moods.

     There are no lip synchronisation issues.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Trailers

     Trailers for Christmas Eve (2:14),3 Nights in the Desert (2:37),All the Wilderness (1:59) and Break Point (2:20) play on start-up. They cannot be selected from the menu.

     I cannot find any critic’s reviews of Lost in the Sun and the user reviews on Amazon.com do not mention extras. I expect that all versions are the same so buy local.

     Lost in the Sun has aspirations to be more than a standard low budget road / coming of age movie and with impressive acting, a beautiful score, some stunning widescreen cinematography and a fitting ending, it mostly pulls it off.

     The video and audio are fine, the extras are only trailers for other films.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall