You know a film about an ex-military special forces soldier is going to be good when he and his escorts can’t even find the court room that they are supposed to be in trial for.
Film making 18/25
Video 23/25
Audio 20/25
Bonus Features 16/25
Total 77/100
From the beginning of The Fall of Sam Axe we have the usual Burn Notice goofiness and hilarity, Sam’s guards are trying to guide him to a hearing and can’t find their way. Sam first has trouble with the gate leading into the embassy in Columbia where most of the film takes place just to start off your opinion of the film.
The Fall of Sam Axe follows the usual Burn Notice episode of the group or in this case Sam finding a person or persons that need help and figuring out a way to help them. In this case it’s a group of Columbian locals who are being accused of being a highly organized and trained group of terrorists.
Sam first gets into trouble when he gets assigned to the South American jungle after getting caught in bed with his commanding officers wife. Much to the amazement of his commanding officer Sam tries to tell him he did not know she was married but the officer doesn’t care.
Sam tells him he will let loose some choice information about past events regarding the officer if he charges Sam with bad con=duct regarding the incident with his wife. So Sam finds himself assigned to a whole in the wall down in South America as a liaison to a militant group who are fighting some local rebels/terrorists.
Sam is supposed to help the local militia fight against terrorist rebels but Sam sees the truth behind the story the militia has been feeding the government. The militia is using the fable of terrorists to get money and supplies from the US so Sam has to expose the truth as well as help the locals.
The group of military that the US is helping is selling the guns and supplies they get from the United States to help fund their own retirement. Sam has to stop them by getting the group of goat herders to train and work like the trained terrorists they are said to be.
The fall of Sam Axe is just like an extended edition of Burn Notice but with Sam as the center of attention instead of a supporting actor. Burn Notice is a great show with just the right mix of serious action/adventure and some almost sidesplitting humor to create an entertaining show.
The Fall of Sam Axe just adds a bit of background to the character without really changing the storyline or anything about the show. The Fall of Sam Axe does not show why Sam behaves the way he does like a life changing death of a loved one or a serious backstabbing by a trusted friend would.
This is more like just an additional look at an already established character for the fun of filming the side line story. The Fall of Sam Axe is a great movie and well worth a look for fans of the show Burn Notice as well as fans of slightly odd action films like The A Team.
Video and audio for The Fall of Same Axe is very good with excellent video quality and well done surround sound but with a slight lack of film quality audio. Video is very clear with great color and skin tone as well as very good looking and realistic effects such as explosions.
The film uses a bit better quality visual effects than the series has on occasion resorted to so the film is realistic as they do not use any lower quality CGI explosions. Audio is a bit lower quality with less than film quality scores on the Blu-ray edition but overall it is pretty good with well done surround.
The audio is fine for general voice and surround is well done with good weapons fire from your full sound field but general music and the score is a bit generic. The films theme music is more of a generic quality and kind of cheesy but overall audio is alright but not really excellent.
Bonus features include, surprise, surprise, a feature called The Fall of Jeffrey Donovan, an audio commentary with Bruce Campbell, Jeffrey Donovan and Matt Nix as well as a Comic-Con 2010 panel interview of the cast and crew from Burn Notice. The bonus features are good and well done as well as entertaining but more would have been nice for some better content.
Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe on Blu-ray is a great fan special but for just an action film it does not exactly rate high for its story and film quality. The movie is good but not great but for a fan it is an indispensable purchase while a pretty solid rental for action aficionados.