For a return to the days when Alec Baldwin played handsome leading men, we head to 1990’s Miami Blues. When Fred “Junior” Frenger (Baldwin) gets out of prison, he starts over in Miami.

However, Junior doesn’t view this as a chance to go clean. Instead, he sees Miami as a spot with a new crop of robbery victims, and he starts his own little crime wave. He also meets prostitute Susie Waggoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and almost immediately marries her.

Junior doesn’t tell Susie how he makes his money, which adds to the intrigue. In addition, he also attempts to stay one step ahead of Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward), the cop who chases after Junior.

Blues falls into that category of “movies I probably saw but forgot about years ago”. Back in the early 1990s, I used to frequent second-run theaters in my area, and I’d see virtually anything.

Was Blues on that list? It seems likely, but at no point did my screening trigger any memories.

That wouldn’t seem to bode well because if Blues was good, shouldn’t I maintain some recollection of it? Now that I’ve seen Blues (again?), I can state that it offers some quirky charms but lacks consistency.

Much of the movie flits between two largely separate plot points. One part of the flick follows the Junior/Susie relationship, while the other concentrates on Junior’s life of crime and Hoke’s pursuit of him. The story connects these elements along the way – especially when Susie becomes more suspicious of her husband – but they usually remain separate from each other.

That’s largely because some of the actors feel like they’re in different movies. Baldwin and Ward tend to play their parts in a broad, almost caricatured manner, while Leigh brings more of an earnest feel to Susie.

Sure, she lays on the cornpone accent a little thick. Nonetheless, she makes Susie into a fairly real character, whereas the men lean more toward comedy.

While I like Leigh’s performance, I suspect Blues would work better if it left out her character and focused on Junior’s shenanigans. The film’s most entertaining moments stem from his criminal activities, as those show some real spark. Ward’s slovenly detective also manages some nutty charm of his own.

Because the movie can’t connect all these dots terribly well, it feels more up and down than I’d like. Blues manages moderate entertainment value across its 97 minutes but the lack of consistency becomes an issue. There’s enough here to turn the film into an occasional pleasure and that’s about it.

Miami Blues appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Though it showed its era, this became a solid Dolby Vision presentation.

Sharpness worked fine. A few wider shots became a bit tentative but the overall impression seemed positive.

No issues with jaggies or moiré effects appeared, and edge haloes remained absent. Grain felt natural – albeit somewhat heavy – and print flaws failed to manifest.

Colors looked appealing. The film opted for an aqua and orange palette that suited the setting and the disc reproduced the hues nicely, with an appealing boost from HDR.

Blacks were fairly deep, and shadows showed good clarity. HDR meant whites and contrast enjoyed added power. Given the nature of 1990 stocks, I thought this was a nice representation of the source.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA stereo soundtrack, it provided serviceable audio. Music demonstrated nice stereo spread, but effects didn’t have a lot to do.

We got some general atmosphere but nothing memorable occurred. This remained a pretty low-key mix and one that felt like a relic since 1990 was late in the game for basic stereo without surround support.

Audio quality was fine for a 36-year-old soundtrack. Speech remained natural and concise, with only a smidgen of roughness along the way.

Music showed nice fidelity and range, and effects appeared fairly accurate and robust. The track didn’t boast a ton of oomph, but it showed decent low-end, mostly related to the music. This became an average mix.

How did this Radiance 4K UHD compare to the 2015 Shout! release? The UHD went with DTS-HD MA stereo vs. LPCM, and to my surprise, it seemed more robust, albeit with a similar soundfield.

The UHD's Dolby Vision visuals demonstrated immense improvements, as it offered better definition, colors and black and also lost the nagging print flaws from its predecessor. This turned into a considerable picture upgrade.

When I compared the 4K UHD to the simultaneously released Radiance Blu-ray, it showed the same audio upgrade. It feels odd that Radiance used two different sound encodes for discs in the same set, but there you go.

The UHD showed growth in terms of accuracy and all the rest, but not the major leap we got from the 2015 disc. Still, the UHD became the best representation of the movie.

No extras appear on the 4K UHD but we get some on the included Blu-ray copy. Also found onthe old BD, we get the film’s trailer and circa 2015 interviews with actors Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

During this 26-minute, one-second compilation, they discuss their casting, characters and performances, shooting in Florida, reflections on the film, and working with director George Armitage. It’s great that the disc’s producers managed to get the stars to talk about Blues, but the end result seems less than fascinating.

A few decent notes emerge. However, I don’t think we learn a lot about the movie.

The remaining extras come new to the Radiance release, and David Jenkins provides an 11-minute, 58-second “appreciation” of the film from the writer/author. Jenkins delivers a good history of those involved and the production in this informative chat.

Maxim Jakubowski brings an 11-minute, 16-second chat from the writer/crime fiction expert in which he focuses on the source novel and its adaptation to the screen. We find a nice summary of these domains.

A Gallery provides 18 stills that combine publicity elements and shots from the set. It becomes a brief but competent compilation.

An odd mix of styles and tones, Miami Blues occasionally entertains. However, it seems too disjointed to become anything consistently satisfying. The 4K UHD provides very good visuals along with decent audio and a moderately informative set of interviews. Blues has its moments but doesn’t pack enough of them to gel.