Blu-ray Review: THE BLIND

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Nov 16, 2023 Posted by Kyle Nolan in DVD/Blu-ray, Reviews | Comments

The Blind is based on the true life story of Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson, long before he became a reality-TV star. The film explores Phil’s story at three different stages of his life. It begins in 1958, as 12-year-old Phil (Ronan Carroll) is part of a very poor family living in Vivian, Louisiana. He has pretty much become the man of the family, taking care of his younger siblings. His father (Clint James) works in the oil field and is away for long periods of time, and his mother (Kerry Knuppe) suffers from some sort of mental illness, often having angry fits and outbursts, and being sent away to an asylum for shock treatment. Phil learns to hunt to provide food for his siblings. As Phil (Matthew Erick White) enters high school, he becomes a football star, and falls in love with Kay Carroway (Brielle Robillard), the daughter of the owner of the local General Store. Her parents aren’t very keen on the relationship, but the two decide to get married and start a family. Everything is going great and the couple seems to have the perfect life, but once Phil (Aron von Andrian) starts to drink, his marriage with Kay (Amelia Eve) goes down hill, and things quickly start to fall apart. Phil’s sister Jan (Emily DeForest) hopes that her friend, Pastor Bill Smith (John Ales), can help her brother find faith and turn his life around.

The film uses a more humorous Princess Bride-like framing device to help tell the story. In 1985, in West Monroe, Louisiana, Phil is out hunting with his friend Big Al (Connor Tillman). As the men sit in the woods waiting for the ducks, Phil recounts his life story. The film constantly cuts back to these two throughout the film, as Big Al interjects to ask a question, make a comment, or look for a clarification. Though, since Big Al is a part of this story (and partially to blame for Phil’s drinking, it seems a bit odd that he doesn’t already know the details.

I have never seen an episode of Duck Dynasty and didn’t really know anything about Phil Robertson or his story until I watched the movie. I really enjoyed the first half of the film. I found his early life fascinating, especially his family’s meager lifestyle and how the children dealt with their mother’s medical condition, and how that affected Phil and his siblings. I also found the love story between Phil and Kay to be quite heartwarming. However, the film then takes a sudden turn. Phil’s alcoholism seems to come out of nowhere. We never see him even take a drink before he becomes this very different man seemingly overnight. It’s never really shown or explained why this happened, we just see him suddenly coming home late, getting angry and selfish, and ignoring his family, causing this once perfect marriage to fall apart. Once Phil decides he needs to change, the story of his redemption and turning around of his life also feels a bit rush, especially compared to how much time was spend on the previous elements of his story. This is supposed to be his big epiphany and life change, but we don’t really see much of the work or effort involved on his part, or how he became such a religious person. It feels like Phil had one conversation with the pastor, went to church and everything was good again. We see a clip of present day Phil preaching just before the end-credits, so it’s clear that this had a big change on him, but I would have liked to see this more in the film. On a side note, I was also a bit disappointed that the movie didn’t even explore any elements regarding Phil’s business or reality TV show. These end up just being a quick footnote in the text that rolls before the credits.

Mill Creek has released The Blind on both Blu-ray and DVD. I was sent the Blu-ray for review, and found the picture quality to be excellent, with a nice clean picture, natural looking colors, and a solid level of detail throughout. The natural setting of the film looks quite beautiful. The audio track provides clear dialogue throughout, and makes nice use of the surround track to give the film an immersive ambiance, such as the sounds of nature when Phil is out hunting, or the crowd in a busy bar, or the pouring rain overhead. The Blu-ray disc is placed in a standard HD keepcase, which is placed in a cardboard slipcover. There is no digital copy included, but the disc contains 4 deleted scenes, and a short present-day interview with Phil’s sister Jan Dasher, pastor Billy Smith & Phil himself.

What’s Included:

Film (1:49:37):

1080p / Widescreen 2.39:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

Deleted Scenes (7:13)
Four scenes play back-to-back. The first finds young Kay shucking corn with Nanny while talking about having child. Nanny warns her that one day she’ll have to fight for her marriage. This scene was mentioned in film, but not shown. In the second, Jan visits Phil at his trailer, telling him she’s praying for him, and that Kay and the kids have started going to church. She tells him that when they were kids they said they’ll always stick together, and that’s what she’s doing, not giving up on him. In the third scene, Jan visits Kay and tells her that she’s going to visit Phil at the bar. And in the final scene, Phil and Big Al are out hunting, and Phil tells Al that things are over between him and Kay; Al gets annoyed by Phil’s duck calls.
The Story Behind the Blind From the People Who Lived It (8:27)
Interviews with Phil’s sister Jan Dasher, pastor Billy Smith & Phil Robertson, who share the story of how they first arranged to meet, came together and became friends, and how this friendship changed Phil’s life. It didn’t state when this was recorded, but it had to be sometime prior to Jan’s death in September 2019.

My Rating

Film:

Video:

Audio:

Extras:

Worth a Look

Final Thoughts:

The Blind tells the interesting life story of Phil Robertson, from his early life, to falling in love and starting a family, to his life falling apart due to an addiction, and finally his redemption. I think the film does a great job with the first two items, but the second two elements feel a bit rushed and not covered in enough detail. I also would have loved to have seen more about his life after these events, rather than it just being covered in a couple sentences before the credits. The film is well acted, and looks and sounds great—fans who saw the movie in the theater should be pleased with the presentation on this Blu-ray release. The film is worth a look for those familiar with Duck Dynasty who are interested in learning more about Phil Robertson’s life before the series.