Two Oscar-winning legends pop up in 2016’s Misconduct. Pierson Pharmaceuticals CEO Arthur Denning (Anthony Hopkins) comes under fire due to clinical drug trials that go horribly awry. Another stressor emerges when someone kidnaps his girlfriend Emily Hynes (Malin Akerman) and threatens to kill her within the next 12 hours.

From there, we flash back a week to see what led to these events. Attorney Ben Cahill (Josh Duhamel) gets a social media “friend request” from Emily, an old girlfriend of his who apparently threatened suicide when they split. Despite this troubled history – and a strained relationship with wife Charlotte (Alice Eve) – he accepts the request and also meets up with Emily at a bar.

This leads Ben down the rabbit hole. Emily reveals that Arthur knew of the flawed drug’s issues and did nothing about the fatal side effects, so Ben persuades her to provide the info. Complications ensue and Ben finds himself in a variety of predicaments.

Despite the presence of Hopkins and fellow legend Al Pacino, Misconduct remains Duhamel’s show, for better or for worse. I’d say mostly “for worse”, though I don’t know how much blame Duhamel – or his co-stars – deserve, as they find themselves in a pretty lackluster thriller.

“Some blame” seems appropriate, though, as few of the performers seem terribly invested in their roles or the film as a whole. Akerman provides the main exception, as she gives the mentally unbalanced Emily an appropriately erratic vibe.

Otherwise, though, the actors fail to bring much to their parts, and that seems especially true for Duhamel. I won’t say he sleepwalks through his role, but Duhamel feels flat and emotionless. He can’t add any spark to the proceedings and acts as something of a hole at the movie’s center.

Not that the meandering plot deserves much better, as the story tends to wander. Misconduct proceeds in a less than logical manner, and it occasionally feels like scenes go missing. Portions of the movie make little sense and proceed without clarity.

It doesn’t help that the film forces Ben to act like a complete idiot so much of the time. As a semi-Everyman in this Hitchcockian affair, the audience should invest in his narrative, but instead, he seems like such a dope that we hope he’ll get caught. The movie offers no reason for the audience to care about or sympathize with Ben, so we’re stuck with a wholly lackluster protagonist.

Really, it’s the pervasive sense of stupidity that mars Misconduct the most. This rampant dopiness creates so many silly, illogical events that the movie collapses under the weight of its own moronic nature.

Misconductc appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This was a fairly positive presentation.

Overall sharpness seemed solid. A hint of softness occasionally materialized, but the movie usually showed pretty good clarity. No issues with jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I noticed no edge haloes. Source flaws were absent, as the movie looked consistently clean.

Misconduct usually gave us a palette that mixed teal and amber. Within those parameters, the hues were positive. Blacks seemed deep and dark, while shadows showed reasonable smoothness and clarity. No real issues affected this appealing presentation.

As for the DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Misconduct, it lacked a ton of ambition. The soundfield focused on music and ambience, though it opened up a bit on occasion. Nothing especially memorable occurred, though.

Audio quality was fine. Speech seemed natural and concise, without edginess or other issues. Music offered good clarity and range, and effects worked well enough. They didn’t have much to do, but they appeared reasonably accurate. All of this ended up as a perfectly satisfactory soundtrack for this sort of movie.

A few extras fill out the set, and these start with The Making of Misconduct. In this 15-minute, eight second piece, we hear from executive producer Chris Brown and actors Josh Duhamel, Alice Eve, Glen Powell, Julia Stiles, Malin Akerman, Byung-Hun Lee, and Anthony Hopkins. “Making” looks at story/characters, cast and performances, and the director’s impact. Despite a decent running time, “Making” sticks with fluff and lacks substance.

Three Deleted Scenes appear. We find “Ben Suspects Doug” (1:57), “Ben Calling Giffords” (0:34) and “Denning Fires Clemente” (1:05). These add some minor character beats but not much of real import.

The disc opens with ads for Extraction, Exposed, Arbitrage and Heist. We also get a trailer for Misconduct.

Despite a pretty good cast, Misconduct flops. The movie suffers from too little logic and gives the viewer no reason to suspend disbelief. The Blu-ray brings us very good picture along with acceptable audio and minor supplements. Misconduct disappoints