25 years ago, the cast of White Elephant would have given it “A-list” status. In 2022, this crew seems less impressive, but we still find some solid names in the project.

During a stakeout, cops Vanessa Flynn (Olga Kurylenko) and Walter Koschek (Michael Rose) witness an explosive assassination. Mob boss Arnold Solomon (Bruce Willis) orders longtime “fixer” Gabriel Tancredi (Michael Rooker) and his apprentice Carlo Garcia (Vadhir Derbez) to take care of this situation.

Gabriel and Carlos eliminate Koschek quickly, but the battle-seasoned Vanessa proves more resilient. She works to stay alive in the face of difficult odds.

As I’ve often noted, I go into inexpensive direct-to-video projects like this with low expectations. Even though the cast – which also includes John Malkovich – might elevate hopes in theory, I’ve watched enough of these to know better than to anticipate much more than mediocrity.

Judged by those terms, Elephant fares better than average. No, this doesn’t make it an actual good movie, but I admit it comes with a bit more charge than usual.

Though not a lot, so don’t view these remarks as a glowing endorsement. I just expect such poor quality from these flicks that it comes as a surprise to encounter one that shows a few glimmers of promise.

Probably the biggest issue with Elephant stems from its lack of focus. Half the movie tells of the issues of an aging hitman, and the other looks at the demons of a young combat veteran.

Perhaps a strong filmmaker could meld these two sides smoothly, but Jesse V. Johnson isn’t that filmmaker. While he manages to pursue the movie at a decent clip, he can’t join the dual storylines in a coherent manner.

This leaves Elephant as two competing films crammed together. The film would work better if it concentrated in one domain without so much emphasis on the other, but as depicted, the end result seems like a bit of a jumble.

Elephant also can’t settle on the tone it prefers. It jumps from serious drama to 90s style tongue-in-cheek crime flick without any smoothness, and Johnson also can’t link these shifts in a winning manner.

All that said, Elephant does manage enough juice to make it moderately entertaining. I can’t really recommend it, but by direct-to-video standards, it provides a better than average product.

White Elephant appears in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a decent but erratic presentation.

Sharpness turned into one of the inconsistent elements, as some aspects of the movie looked oddly soft. While most of the movie seemed fairly well-defined, these less precise moments created minor distractions. I suspected these issues largely stemmed from stylistic choices or lackluster camera equipment, but they still seemed strange.

I saw no signs of jagged edges or moiré effects, and the image lacked edge haloes. The film showed no print flaws.

Colors opted for stylized tones that mixed the usual orange and teal, albeit in a semi-subdued way. The transfer pulled them off in a satisfactory manner.

Blacks felt fine, and shadows showed acceptable delineation. Overall, this became a mostly satisfying image outside of the occasional soft shot.

While not overly ambitious, the movie’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack worked well. A few more action-oriented scenes used the spectrum best, as some violence packed a punch.

Most of the soundfield emphasized the film’s moody score as well as environmental elements. These broadened the mix in a compelling manner.

Audio quality seemed good, with speech that comes across as natural and concise. Music appeared vivid and robust as well.

Effects offered solid clarity, with nice range and low-end impact. This turned into a fairly worthwhile mix.

The disc opens with ads for Apex, Into the Ashes and A Score to Settle. No trailer for Elephant or other extras appear here.

Nothing about White Elephant really satisfies, but it also never turns into a dud, either. That stands as a victory in the world of direct-to-video thrillers. The Blu-ray gives us decent picture and audio but it lacks bonus materials. This turns into a serviceable action flick.