Two days before the publication of this review, Wesley Snipes was freed on bail as his appeal of his three year sentence for failing to file tax returns for three years was being considered. I can’t help wonder if this 2005 direct to video production was motivated by his anticipating the need to come up with some quick cash if his trial didn’t go well… which it did not. Three years since production, no theatrical release, and finally a release to disc raised some initial doubts concerning the quality of this tale of theft, deceit, and brutality. My fears were, for the most part, unfounded, but not completely. 7 Seconds is an above average direct to video flick that has only a few glaring lapses of logic.

Set in Romania, the film begins with an armored car heist. Three vans are hit simultaneously with precision, led by ex-military Jack Tuliver (Wesley Snipes) and a trusted crew with a shared military background. Alas, things don’t go well. When a seven second electronic delay timer fails to detonate plastic explosives intended to blow the armored car doors open, the heist is called off. (That timer incident seems to me to be an odd choice for the naming of the film.) But this is only part of a cunning plan. A heist will indeed be executed, and the haul a considerable one. In fact, the crew gets away with more than they realize. Among the spoils is an oversized, locked, highly secure, bulletproof attaché case holding a recently discovered Van Gogh valued at and insured for $65 million.

But there is so much more afoot than Tuliver realizes. He and his fleeing thieves are ambushed by a rival gang and, in the ensuing firefight, only Tuliver and one of his crew escape. When the fleeing Tuliver uses the attaché case as a shield against gunfire, his lover, Suza (Georgina Rylance), is taken hostage. Whoever these people are, they want that case, and she just became a pawn. As Tuliver is pursued, he literally runs into an off-duty British Military Policewoman, Sergeant Kelly Anders (Tamzin Outhwaite). Before you can say high speed pursuit, he shoots two thugs, forces her into her car, and drives off with the police on his tail.

Much crashing and mayhem ensue. Anders is eventually released, but she falls under suspicion as being an accomplice. Only the intervention of her commanding officer saves her from immediate arrest. She determines to investigate the crime on her own and, naturally, makes more headway than a team of British military investigators and the local Romanian police force combined.

What follows is a bit of a cat and mouse game. Two rival Romanian gangs, the police, the British MPs, and Anders are all after Tuliver. The Romanians want the case; the authorities want to make an arrest. And Tuliver desperately wants to save Suza and not die in the process.

There are lapses in what could have been a superior entertainment: a car that should not have been drivable survives the entire film; a principle character is tortured for information that resides in a pants pocket never searched; another principle character does a complete and inexplicable about-face mere minutes before the closing credits (that one made me wonder about an inauspicious edit); a shooting that should have resulted in Tuliver’s instant death… I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

Wesley Snipes is quite good in his role. The supporting cast is sufficiently convincing. The Bucharest, Romania location is very authentic. The lively action set pieces are exciting and dynamic. And the fights are well staged and choreographed (although why villains with automatic weapons can’t hit the hero is always a mystery to me). This is a mindless entertainment that begs you leave your brain at the door. Accomplish that and you will have a good time.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is presented in a reasonable but not exceptional high definition transfer. I found the images to be a bit on the soft side and marred with frequently visible halos. Take a look at the edges of some dark clothing on a couple of thugs at about the 28-minute mark; the halos are surprisingly thick for high definition. I suspect edge enhancement has been applied to compensate for the filtering required for high compression on a single-layer disc. Color rendition is quite good. Black levels are inconsistent from scene to scene, but are mostly pretty deep. I didn’t notice any crush on the top end of the video dynamic range, but shadow detail is lacking. Between the dearth of startling detail I’ve become accustomed to from BDs and the presence of halos, the images have a slightly processed look that spoils the illusion of film. Regardless, this transfer is far better than DVD can produce.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is quite nice. The bottom end is subtle but powerful, with visceral thumps at suitable times. Sound effects are dynamic, but don’t quite manage to stimulate a Goosebumps response. Gunfire could have been a bit more impactful. The surrounds are used for pans and discrete sounds to good effect. Barry Taylor’s score seems only intended to provoke viewer response and is not memorable, but is reproduced with pleasing fidelity. The spoken word remains clean and distortion-free throughout.

The alternate languages are French and Portuguese in TrueHD 5.1, and Spanish and Thai in Dolby Digital 5.1. The optional subtitles are in English SDH, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Indonesian, and Korean.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Not much to report. There are HD trailers for Redbelt, Starship Troopers 3: Marauders, and Resident Evil: Degeneration.

There is Sony’s Bookmarks feature and some BD Live content.

Final Thoughts

This is an okay action-adventure flick that falls apart in the third act; it can be entertaining if you can resist the notion to analyze too closely. Just be aware of a disappointing transfer, an adequate audio track, and little in the way of supplements.


Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide. Our I.T. people are still hard at work on a large project and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating scales. So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.