When Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas last worked together, they starred in the 2015 adult thriller Knock Knock. We get another glimpse of the pair in a different situation via 2016’s direct-to-video effort Exposed, a crime story with a potential supernatural bent.

When police detective Joey Cullen (Danny Hoch) gets murdered, his partner Scott Galban (Reeves) investigates. As he does so, he encounters many secrets about Cullen, information that shows a much darker side to the slain cop.

In addition, we follow Isabel de La Cruz (de Armas), a young woman acquainted with others who may be connected to the murder. She seems to have her own mysterious link to the crime as well, which we learn as her story unfolds.

Boy, that synopsis makes Exposed sound pretty straightforward, doesn’t it? Don’t expect a standard narrative from the film, though, as it really takes an elliptical path to its conclusion.

In truth, Exposed offers two separate tales that connect by the end but proceed independently for the most part. Half the movie looks at Isabel’s life and the other follows Galban’s investigation. Though some characters show up in both parts, the two leads don’t truly mesh until the finale.

While I appreciate the movie’s attempts to do something different, it doesn’t work. Exposed tries so hard to give us a twist on a pretty boilerplate genre flick that it forgets to tell a coherent story.

That becomes the main issue with Exposed: via all its quirky machinations, it loses its path and becomes muddled. Actually, “becomes muddled” isn’t right, as the movie starts muddled. The filmmakers intend to give us something mysterious, but instead, they deliver a film without logic or coherence, and that covers the whole movie.

Not everything here is bad, mainly because De Armas seems quite good as the haunted Isabel. As flawed as her character may be in the script, she adds a sad tone to the role that hints at depth not found on the printed page.

And I do think the story had potential. If created by more proficient filmmakers, the dual narrative may have worked and turned into something involving and intriguing.

Unfortunately, the end result becomes too mushy and messy to succeed. As much as I appreciate Exposed’s stabs at inventiveness, the final product seems so incoherent that I continually wished it’d taken a more standard route.

Exposed appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Across the board, the transferred looked good.

Sharpness was fine. A little softness occurred in some wide shots, but those didn’t become a concern. Overall definition seemed solid. I noticed no jagged edges or moiré effects, and the presentation lacked apparent edge haloes or other artifacts. I also saw no print flaws, as the movie always seemed clean.

In terms of colors, Exposed reflected Hollywood’s modern fascination with orange and teal. As tedious as that has become, the colors looked fine within the design parameters. In addition, blacks were dark and tight, while low-light shots were decent; some could be a bit dense, but they weren’t bad. This was a generally positive presentation.

As for the film’s DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, it added breadth to the experience, but it came with a drawback: a lack of balance. The movie delivered an active soundscape in which effects tended to be mixed too loud. This made it difficult to hear dialogue at times, as the lines could become buried.

This wasn’t a horrible problem, though, and I did like the level of involvement from the soundfield. Scenes on streets or in subway stations added dimensionality and life. Music also showed good stereo impact.

When I could hear the lines, they sounded natural, and music displayed appropriate range and clarity. Effects appeared accurate and dynamic. I took off some points for the erratic balance, but this was still a generally positive mix.

Audio quality always pleased. Speech remained natural and concise, with no edginess or other flaws. Music sounded full and dynamic, while effects came across as accurate and clear. All of this suited the film and earned a solid “B” – only the lack of dialogue-related balance became an issue.

A handful of extras appear here. Making Exposed lasts 12-minute, eight-second offers notes from actors Keanu Reeves, Ana de Armas, Mira Sorvino, Christopher McDonald, Michael Rispoli, and Big Daddy Kane. We learn about story and characters as well as cast and performances. A few minor insights occur but mostly we get praise for the film and those involved.

Cast Interviews arrive for the six actors featured in “Making”. We hear from Reeves (8:05), Sorvino (6:16), de Armas (3:30), McDonald (4:01), Rispoli (3:29) and Kane (3:57). These sessions extend those from “Making” and cover the same topics, though we also learn a bit about the film’s crew. Even with the added time, the actors continue to give us bland comments.

The disc opens with ads for Extraction, Knock Knock, Heist, Sicario and John Wick. We also find the trailer for Exposed.

With an unusual tone and narrative, Exposed offers a twist on the standard cop/crime genre. Unfortunately, the movie’s execution drops the ball and makes the plot plodding and barely coherent. The Blu-ray brings us very good picture along with erratic audio and fluffy supplements. I wanted to like Exposed but found myself put off by its meandering nature.