Via 1993’s The Fugitive, Tommy Lee Jones won an Oscar as a relentless law enforcement officer. 1994’s Blown Away put him on the other side of the equation as a terrorist pursued by authorities. Now that’s range!

Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges) works for the Boston Police Department’s bomb squad, though he decides to leave behind this stressful life and teach new recruits. However, Jimmy rethinks this choice when an explosive kills his former partner (Ruben Santiago-Hudson).

Dove suspects former IRA operative Ryan Gaerity (Jones), a dude so bonkers that even that violent organization washed its hands of him. Dove tries to find Gaerity before he kills again, a search complicated by the fact the two used to be friends.

Though Hollywood gave him multiple chances, director Stephen Hopkins never could make fetch happen. After his 1987 debut Dangerous Game caught the eye of Hollywood, he helmed two underperforming sequels via 1989’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child and 1990’s Predator 2.

1993’s Judgment Night also failed to find much of an audience. Though Blown Away didn’t reverse this trend, Hollywood continued to give Hopkins more high-profile projects.

Did 1996’s The Ghost and Darkness and 1998’s Lost in Space earn more money than their predecessors? Yes, but both also came with budgets too high for them to turn profits.

After 2000’s Under Suspicion became yet another dud, Hollywood apparently finally cut Hopkins loose – or maybe he just decided to bail. Whatever the case, Hopkins essentially stopped making features after 2000, though he did still work in TV.

I actually like some of Hopkins’ flicks. Heck, I’m one of the few people who prefers Predator 2 to the 1987 original!

Still, I think Hopkins mainly presented as a pedestrian director over the years who made moderately entertaining films but never excelled beyond that. Blown Away falls into that category.

On the positive side, Blown Away boasts a pretty terrific cast. In addition to Jones and Bridges, we find Forest Whitaker, Suzy Amis, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Jeff’s dad Lloyd in one of their rare cinematic collaborations.

Unfortunately, none of them do much with their thin roles. They generally overact and can’t turn their parts into compelling characters.

It doesn’t help that both Bridges boys and Jones struggle with their accents. This becomes especially true for Jones, whose awful stab at an Irish dialect makes the Lucky Charms leprechaun sound genuine.

Elsewhere on this disc, Hopkins claims that they need to loop the dialogue from Jeff Bridges and Jones multiple times because American audiences couldn’t understand their authentic dialects. I don’t quite buy this but I figured I’d add it to the discussion.

Beyond that, Blown Away simply feels overbaked and desperate to provide thrills that it never quite achieves. Actually, the plot takes too long to get where it needs to go, as the audience must sit through a lot of padding to get to the big twist.

To compensate for the slow narrative, Hopkins compensates with lots of urgent scenes that feel forced and less than organic. Again, the actors don’t help, as their over the top performances contribute to my view of Blown Away as a movie that works too hard to entertain us.

The whole package just lacks confidence. It feels like Hopkins doesn’t trust the script and pushes the attempted tension and thrills to 11 to compensate.

This doesn’t work, as the stabs at suspense never pound the pulse. We end up with a spotty thriller that just doesn’t click like it should.

Blown Away appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This wound up as a pleasing presentation.

Overall definition worked fine. A few interiors could lean a little soft, but the majority of the movie felt accurate and concise.

No issues with shimmering or jagged edges materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed appropriate, and print flaws remained absent.

Although night shots leaned blue, the movie’s palette largely felt natural. The disc brought out the hues in a vivid manner.

Blacks seemed deep and rich, while low-light shots brought pretty good clarity. The image held up well over the last 30-plus years.

In addition, the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack suited the tale. The soundscape opened up in an appealing manner, especially during its more action-oriented sequences, as those used the channels in a dynamic manner.

Music enjoyed solid stereo presence. Scenes without slam-bang gave us a good sense of place and movement.

Audio quality satisfied, with speech that remained natural and distinctive. Music brought strong range and punch.

Effects followed suit, as those elements appeared accurate and full. Though not quite “A”-level, the mix worked nicely for this project.

As we shift to extras, we locate two separate audio commentaries. The first comes from director Stephen Hopkins, as he provides a running, screen-specific look at story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, effects, stunts and action, photography, editing and connected domains.

Hopkins provides a track that seems competent and no better. While Hopkins offers a moderately informative chat, he never turns this into anything consistently insightful.

For the second commentary, we hear from film historians Arne Venema and Mike Leeder. Both sit together for their running, screen-specific discussion of cast and crew, some production elements and their thoughts about the flick.

As always, Venema and Leeder provide excited participants. However, this becomes one of their weaker tracks, mainly because they don’t bring as much insight as I’d like.

To a decent degree, the commentary feels like an annotated IMDB page, as Venema and Leeder tend to tell us the names and filmographies of the participants. We get enough info to make the track listenable, but it doesn’t turn into a great discussion.

Thr Making of Blown Away goes for 20 minutes, 48 seconds. Hosted by actor Lloyd Bridges, it involves Hopkins, producers John Watson, Richard Lewis and Pen Desham, executive producer Lloyd Segan, technical advisor Lr. Robert Molloy, special effects coordinator Clay Pinney, 1st AD Josh MacLaglen, and actors Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Forest Whitaker, and Suzy Amis.

The featurette goes over story/characters, cast and performances, the depiction of bomb squads and some effects. We get a handful of nuggets but the program exists to promote the movie so it stays superficial most of the time.

Next we locate a music video for “Take Me Home” from Joe Cocker and Bekka Bramlett. Despite the talent of Cocker and Bramlett, they can’t elevate this overwrought balled into anything good, and the video seems mediocre at best as well.

Finally, we get five TV spots for Blown Away as well as trailers for Blown Away, Face/Off, The Usual Suspects, Hard Target, Ronin, Turbulence, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Winter Kills, Black Moon Rising and The Package.

With a quality cast and a decent premise, Blown Away feels like it should deliver a solid thriller. Instead, it comes as an awkward combination of a sluggish plot and borderline campy drama. The Blu-ray delivers very good picture and audio as well as a mix of bonus material. Not much about this film hits the mark.