Corrupt cops run rampant in the top new DVD picks for the week of July 14.
“Body Cam”: After a suspension and while grieving her young son’s accidental death, police officer Renee Lomito-Smith (Mary J. Blige) is back at work with a new partner, the green, easily affected Danny Holledge (Nat Wolff). While on patrol, the pair discover the gruesome remains of another colleague who’d been on a seemingly routine traffic stop, kicking off a disturbing series of deadly attacks. Amid the killings, reckless Renee and reluctant Danny set off to investigate, with supernatural pieces to the puzzle not-so-neatly dropped along the way.
It’s an intriguing tale, helmed by director Malik Vitthal and written by Richmond Riedel and Nicholas McCarthy, if a tad too on the nose. As Blige begins to unravel a web of corruption in the department, her character development remains flat, and despite a disturbingly devastating twist amid the gore, the stakes remain relatively low. There’s just something that feels off about the tone — despite all the blood and guts, it ends up feeling less like a horror movie and more like a meditation on grief, rage and revenge, in more ways than one.
Also new on DVD
“Castle in the Ground”: Dealing with grief, a teenage boy (Alex Wolff) makes friends with a troubled neighbor (Imogen Poots) amid the opioid epidemic.
