Night Moves was co-written and directed by Kelly Reichardt (Jon Raymond partnered with her on the screenplay), the divisive filmmaker behind Wendy and Lucy and Meek's Cutoff. Those going in expecting a traditional thriller will be disappointed, as this is an extremely slow-burn character piece about the complexities of extreme activism. Josh, Harmon, and Dena each represent a different level of commitment to the ideals they're talking about: Josh is a bit too committed, almost clinical in his decisiveness; Harmon takes the issue seriously but remains calm and controlled in tough moments; and Dena betrays her own nervousness by constantly talking, trying to joke, trying to break the ice. Although Josh and Dena arrive together, there is constant friction between them.

Through this range of characters, the audience is given the opportunity to decide how strongly they feel about the group's intended actions. All three agree that humanity is destroying the planet and there's a chance that it's already too late to do anything about it, but the intrigue of the first half of the movie is watching the character dynamics at work. Although he is the most invested, Josh also seems most likely to snap at any moment, always prepared to abort. Harmon is present, but hardly seems involved, explaining issues with supplies and how to do things, but then delegating the responsibility to someone else. Dena is the least invested but also the one who believes there's nothing to lose. Fueled by idealism, she becomes the most brave, insomuch as confronting a potentially sexist or suspicious feed store owner (James LeGros) could be considered brave.

As the film shifts into the second half, the movie changes, arguably for the worse. What begins as unconventionally quiet and methodical becomes more standard, as the film narrows its focus down to just Josh. Reichardt's minimalist approach to this half of the film sometimes makes it hard to get a bead on the character and what feelings motivate his actions, which in turn makes it hard to determine what Night Moves is really trying to get across. He behaves erratically, and his interactions with Dena could be interpreted as either honest or manipulative. For the most part, they seem earnest, but there are moments in Eisenberg's performance that suggest otherwise. Reichardt is also a fan of fairly on-the-nose imagery. The worst is a shot of Josh, moments before the trio gets in the boat, examining his dirty hands; shortly thereafter, while backing the boat into the water, Reichardt watches the subtle ripple effect of the craft being pushed in.

Without a strong understanding of Josh's emotional state, Night Moves is hard to parse, even before Reichardt brings the film to an incredibly obscure ending. The difference between the film's two halves comes down to the difference between an exploration of character and an exploration of theme. Although the second half of the movie has some potentially interesting (if not entirely original) ideas to explore thematically, Reichardt loses some of her grip on the character dynamic. It would be easier to engage with the film's questions if we were doing it through three different perspectives, but Night Moves boils down to one, and he's frustratingly impenetrable.

The Blu-ray
Cinedigm brings Night Moves to Blu-ray with some of the most aggressive heads-in-boxes art I've ever seen -- the cover is literally just three faces, over green backdrops, with text (a quote, the title, some names). Hard to tell if the fuzzy colors behind Sarsgaard are meant to be the outdoors. However, Cinedigm has also done things right by making this a reversible cover, with really stylish painted artwork on the reverse of the sleeve. A perfect, simple solution to the need for attention-grabbing sales art and actually caring what the cover looks like. The disc comes in a colorless plastic Viva Elite (likely so nobody misses the reverse art option), and there is no insert.

The Video and Audio
Night Moves is an exceptionally dark film, with plenty of scenes existing right on the edge of crush. However, the 1.78:1 1080p AVC presentation by Cinedigm is able to handle the subtleties of shadow for 95% of the running time. The image may look a little bright (likely the result of someone nervous viewers were going to miss something), but in this one case, I manually adjusted my brightness level down a few notches and the entire image appeared nicely balanced, with satisfying black levels. Fine detail is sometimes obscured by a certain softness, but it's clear this is part of the original photography. Despite IMDb having no technical information and the credits not featuring any camera equipment logos, there is visible grain throughout the film, especially in those dark scenes, which gives the movie some nice texture. It might be a digital approximation of grain rather than natural film grain, but in this case it works.

Audio is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which has no issue with the dialogue, minimal score, or the occasional sound effect. Night Moves is such a minimal movie, most of the time the sound is simply used to capture the eerie silence in the air, although in one scene it effectively nabs the subtleties of a man talking on his cell phone from a great distance. The packaging features a logo for a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track as well, but the 5.1 is the only track on the disc. English captions for the deaf and the hard of hearing are the only additional option.

The Extras
Only the film's original theatrical trailer is offered here. There aren't even any other auto-play trailers to open the disc.

Conclusion
Fans of Kelly Reichardt will probably see Night Moves either way, but for the rest of the world, it's a hard sell. There are definitely aspects to admire -- although the film remains intensely low-key at all times, there are still sequences filled with tension. On the other hand, Night Moves loses track of the characters and builds to a fairly frustrating non-ending. As I don't want to seem like I'm penalizing Reichardt's filmmaking style (which many will), I'll go with a rental recommendation, but this is far from a conventional thriller, and it loses steam as it goes along.