There are movie stars and there are great actors. The two, while not mutually exclusive, often times are. The classic example of the former is John Wayne. He was unquestionably a movie star and one of the biggest of all times. However, while he had a powerful screen presence, he was John Wayne in every film he made, playing the same type of character, whether he was a cowboy or a marine. While watching him, you always knew you were watching John Wayne as he never simply became the character he was playing. You never lost sight of exactly who he was at any given in one of his films. On the other hand, there are great actors like Gary Oldman, who changes his appearance and mannerisms and becomes the character he is portraying. In watching him on film, you forget who the actor is and believe that it is the actual character you are watching. Whether it is Beethoven in Immortal Beloved, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight or Jean-Baptist Emmanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element, Gary Oldman simply gets totally lost in his character and so do you, which brings us to Sean Penn in Milk.

Film 

Simply put, Milk is a fantastic film and a pleasure to have experienced on Blu-ray. With kids and other responsibilities, this is one of the films which I regretfully didn’t have the opportunity to experience in the theater. The film stars Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, a gay activist in San Francisco who became the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States who was murdered along with San Francisco Mayor Mascone by fellow city supervisor Dan While in the late 1970′s.

The film features an excellent screenplay and excellent acting from the entire cast. The most memorable thing about this film is the incredible acting performance by Sean Penn who simply becomes Harvey Milk. You completely forget you are watching Sean Penn and believe you are watching Harvey Milk himself telling his life story. Quite frankly, my wife and I had a hard time believing we were actually watching Sean Penn during the entire film, as he was so totally lost in the role, becoming Harvey MIlk himself. In fact, Sean Penn was so powerful in this role, it is really difficult to imagine how anyone else could have won the Oscar for Best Actor at the recent Academy Awards ceremony. There can be no doubt that Sean Penn is a great actor. While I am sure that this film has some subject matter that some may find difficult, this is a film and an acting performance that you really should see and I encourage you to do so. Highly recommended.

Video 

Milk is encoded with AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:85:1 and is an excellent looking transfer. The film features some archival footage including some old TV footage featuring Anita Bryant, Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokow which looks as bad as you would expect it to. However, the actual film itself looks excellent with a very natural and well saturated color palette and spot on skin tones. However, the overall filmed image is a bit of a mixed bag as I found the early part of the film to be a tad soft and lacking in detail, especially the darker interior scenes. However, the second half of the film looks fantastic with excellent black level, abundant detail and clarity that is on bar with all but the top tier of Blu-Ray encodes I have seen. The second half of the film has a crispness and clarity that results in a very three dimensional image that fully warrants a 4.5 star rating.

However, due to the softness and murkiness of the beginning of the film, I had to drop the overall rating of the film down to a four. However, I have little doubt that fans of the film will be more than quite pleased with the look of Milk on Blu-ray. I know I was.

Audio 

Encoded with DTS HD Master Audio, the audio on Milk was about what I had expected given the nature of the film. This is not an aggressive sound mix and not of reference quality by any means as it lacks the overall sense of immersion that one would expect from a reference title. The surrounds, while active throughout the film, just don’t place you inside a cocoon of sound, with the sound mix mainly emanating from the front three speakers in a 5.1 configuration. You simply lack the feeling of being in the room with the actors during the filming which for me, is the hallmark of a 5 star sound design.

However, the audio that is present is presented with excellent fidelity, having a full, smooth and open sound that was quite appealing. The dialogue track was well recorded and provides a convincing sense of real voices in real space although lacking the transparency of the best sound designs. However, given the nature of the film, the audio on this release was more than satisfying and fully warrants a 3.5 star rating despite its shortcomings.

Special Features 

Overall, I was quite disappointed with the rather threadbare extras included with this release. The extras included three featurettes Remembering Harvey, Hollywood Comes to San Francisco and Marching for Equality all of which are in high definition and all of which have excellent picture quality as well. The extras are most interesting in that they feature interviews with some of the actual characters in the film who discuss what it was like to be friends with Harvey Milk and live in San Francisco during the 1970′s.

However, there are two people conspicuous by their absences in the extras, namely Sean Penn and Harvey Milk himself. One would have thought that an interview with Sean Penn himself would have been featured as part of the featurettes but it is not. I also thought that it would have been nice to have included some archival footage of interviews and news clips featuring Harvey Milk himself, especially portions of his many debates involving the fight against Proposition 6 that was featured during the film. I for one would have liked to see that footage and am really surprised that it wasn’t included in the extras.

The film is also BD-Live enabled, which allows you to collect your favorite scenes from the film and share them with your friends. Frankly, I don’t really see the point in that feature and would have greatly preferred a more robust set of extras than those included here.

Final Thoughts  

Milk is a wonderful film featuring an incredible performance by Sean Penn in the lead role of Harvey Milk and is a film that is well worth your time. Highly recommended.