Academy Award® winners Juliette Binoche and Morgan Freeman lead this riveting thriller set in the trucking industry and its seamy underbelly of human trafficking. To save the life of her brother (Frank Grillo), Sally (Binoche), a truck driver, reluctantly agrees to smuggle illicit cargo: a girl named Leila (Hala Finley). As Sally and Leila begin a danger-fraught journey across state lines, a dogged FBI operative (Freeman) sets out on their trail, determined to do whatever it takes to terminate a human-trafficking operation — and bring Sally and Leila to safety.

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Video Quality

Paradise Highway arrives on Blu-Ray with a fetching 1080p presentation in its original 2.39:1 aspect ratio that looks mostly great in high definition. The clarity throughout is very impressive with subtle textures in the backgrounds and in the different styles of clothing coming through perfectly. Black levels have a good amount of depth and do not fall victim to noticeable digital noise outside of a handful of shadowy moments. This is a film shot with a unique aesthetic to mirror the narrative needs of the film. Color saturation is solid with the stylized color palette presenting moments exactly as intended. Some instances feature picturesque shots of nature that pop off the screen, while other areas of the palette are more hazy and unsteady. Skin tones are natural overall with some exposed skin showing off grime, bruises and scars. Lionsgate Home Entertainment has delivered a steady high definition presentation here.

Audio Quality

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is utilized effortlessly to perfectly tell this story. The soundscape on display here is much more nuanced than you might expect. This story features the sounds of trucks pulling in and out of parking lots, traversing the highway, radio discussions and more emanating from numerous directions. The movie uses environmental sounds very effectively, and the track retains strong detail even when the characters are thrown into chaos. Dialogue comes through crisp and clear as it balances well with the music and the sound effects. This track is not going to assault your subwoofer, but the low end does come alive with the roar of the trucks and other key moments. This track passes its assessment with flying colors. There are English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles provided.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: Writer-Director Anna Gutto provides an informative commentary track packed with details about the origins of the project, finding the right music for certain scenes, the ensemble cast, fleshing out elements of the script from listening to CB radio conversations, motivations behind certain moments, the realities of Binoche driving the truck and more. It is helpful to understand what was intended by the film even if I do not feel like it executed it flawlessly.
Deleted Scenes: Five unused scenes totaling five minutes are provided here featuring an introduction between Gerick and Sterling, a playful moment between Sally and Leila, an extended explanation from Gerick and more. These scenes are provided with optional commentary from Gutto which explains why the moments were cut.
Behind The Scenes of American Carnage: A pretty solid 23-minute documentary featurette is provided here in which the cast and creative team take you through the creation of this feature including the origins of the story, the characters and performances in the film, bringing social issues to a wider audience, bringing on real truck drivers to appear in the film, the shooting locations and more.
Theatrical Trailer: A three-minute trailer is provided here.

Final Thoughts

Paradise Highway is a film with the honorable intentions; the world at large needs to be aware of how prevalent human trafficking truly is and hopefully be inspired to help do something about it. Yet, this does not feel like the project to reach such lofty ambitions, or at the very least hold up as a great film. There are many issues with the script; characters do not earn your sympathy, whole plot threads are largely unnecessary, and realism is in short supply. The performances don’t really salvage things either, as most seem to be either phoning it in or are simply miscast for what they are tasked to do. The technical craft of the filmmaking is very strong, and it shows a lot of promise for the future. There are some ambitious shots captured here that feel executed by a much more seasoned director. Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released a Blu-Ray with a strong A/V presentation and a few decent supplemental features. If you are curious about the subject or the cast, give it a shot, but just understand that the execution of the feature cannot match its intention.

Paradise Highway is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD and Digital.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Lionsgate Home Entertainment has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.