This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: The Equalizer, Tusk, Banshee

By John Law

December 30th 2014, 12:04am

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

This week: Denzel Washington goes back to busting chops in The Equalizer, Kevin Smith gets long in the tooth with Tusk, and everyone dies harder in Banshee's crazy second season.

► Denzel Washington reunites with his ‘Training Day’ director Antoine Fuqua for THE EQUALIZER, playing a former Green Beret who goes back to his badass ways when a prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz, all grown up) is badly beaten by her Russian pimp. It sets off a chain of events when a Russian enforcer is sent from the homeland for payback. Loosely based on the ‘80s TV show. Washington is great as usual, negating the well-worn script and clichéd characters. A climactic battle at a Home Depot-like store (Home Mart) is full of crazy, comic book carnage. If Marvel wants to try another Punisher movie, Fuqua is the perfect director.

► Kevin Smith goes full ‘Human Centipede’ in his campy horror flick TUSK – which is either a comeback or the worst thing he’s ever done, going by the extreme reaction. Justin Long plays a podcaster who travels to Manitoba to interview the maker of a viral video, and instead finds himself trapped in the home of a local eccentric (Michael Parks) obsessed with transforming him into a walrus. Based on one of Smith’s actual podcasts. Even if we never get ‘Chasing Amy’ caliber Smith again, I love the fact he finds a way to make whatever gonzo movie he wants these days.

► As things got more over the top, ratings went up for Season 2 of Showtime’s BANSHEE. Fake sheriff Lucas (Antony Starr) deals with a federal investigation, more problems with the local Amish crime boss, and the introduction of a scary-as-hell Kinaho tribe leader, who looks to be the big bad for Season 3 (which starts Jan. 9). Meanwhile, his former flame (Ivana Milicevic) goes to jail and settles things with her gangster dad. The graphic sex and violence is getting more cartoony, but this has been a fun ride from the start.

► Predictably cheap and sleazy, the Lifetime biopic THE BRITTANY MURPHY STORY offers Amanda Fuller as the troubled star who died from – depending on your source – drugs, pneumonia or toxic mold. This bottom-feeding pic doesn’t offer any answers. Nor any real insight into her talent or career (the re-enactments of ‘Clueless’ are like a SNL parody). About as classy and revealing as Lifetime’s Anna Nicole bio. Can a Robin Williams one be far behind?

► Fortunes finally seem to change for the eternally downtrodden Gallagher clan in Season 4 of SHAMELESS. But no sooner does Fiona (Emmy Rossum) get a job and Lip (Jeremy Allen White) goes to college than Frank (William H. Macy) gets liver disease. It starts a streak of shit luck for the family which includes arrests, overdoses and unwanted pregnancies. All that plus a shocker for longtime viewers in the finale. Season 5 starts Jan. 11.

► RED vs. BLUE hits Season 12 as not just one of the longest-running web series, but currently the longest running sci-fi series, TV or otherwise. A parody of first-person shooter games, it uses the designs and universe of ‘Halo’ to tell a different story about opposing teams in a civil war. As the series progresses, it has started falling more in line with the ‘Halo’ series. Season 12 is 19 episodes, ranging from five to 15 minutes each, with deleted scenes and commentary.

► John Herzfeld’s all-star weepie REACH ME wanted to be the ‘Crash’ of feel-good flicks, but instead went unnoticed after an Indiegogo campaign raised more than $180,000 to make it. Story follows a diverse group of people (a cop, an actor, a hip-hop mogul, etc.) who are all drawn to the message of a powerful book written by a reclusive author (Tom Berenger). Sylvester Stallone, Kelsey Grammer, Nelly, Terry Crews, Danny Trejo and Thomas Jane show up…apparently making a bizarro Expendables movie.

► A remake of the 2005 Argentinean flick, ELSA & FRED has Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer as two elderly neighbors – one recently widowed, one dying but full of vigor. A reunion of the two Oscar winners after doing Richard Attenborough’s final film, 2007’s ‘Closing the Ring.’

Also out this week: