Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
J.K. Simmons has been gracing the screen, both big and small, for twenties years but his career is more in the long category than the illustrious kind. Simmons has quietly paid his dues, slipping in a commendable character actor’s career, and was undeniably long overdue for a role of this magnitude. After witnessing his knockout performance in Whiplash, I’ve join the ranks now wondering why he wasn’t cast in roles like this a long time ago. Read More
“The Guest”
Directed by Adam Wingard
Starring Dan Stevens, Brendan Meyer, Maika Monroe, Lance Reddick, Alex Knight, Jesse Luken
99 Mins
Slam Drive and Stocker together, rub them down in a spicy 80’s genre marinate and sprinkle with mesmerizing performances and dollops of camp and you have The Guest. Like a turducken of genre, Adam Wingard‘s latest is a campy horror movie stuffed inside a hoodwinking Canon action flick and deep fried in the latest brand of Bourne-style thriller. It’s clever, tense, uproarious, and hypnotizing nearly ever second.
Coming off the success of You’re Next and the crowd-pleasing anthology V/H/S films, Wingard has assembled another cast of “where did these people come from?” talent.
Dan Stevens is absolutely magnetic as the titular guest and from his vacuous eyed stares to his charismatic domination of conversations, he oozes character. You might recognize Stevens from Downtown Abbey but his turn here is a reinvention and could signal the birth of a true star. While youngsters have a floppy tendency to detract from the overall thespian landscape, newbies Brendan Meyer and Maika Monroe each hold their own, elevating cliches into compelling characters.
Wingard and scribe Simon Barrett admit in the writing process, the film was inspired by Terminator and Halloween, an unlikely combination but you can see the influence bleeding from both. By transcending a single genre, The Guest is able to riff on the tropes of nearly all mainstay film culture. But don’t confuse homage with mocking, there is artistry present here that escapes cheap imitation, a fact that garners such a spectrum of emotions. The fact that the film’s mood can change on a dime depending on Steven’s facial composure is a sure sign of its thematic success. The Guest may not be deadly serious but it’s never not deadly funny. We laugh because its familiar and yet new; a crossroads of homage and invention.
Completed in a mere 31-day shoot, the technical aspects of Guest shine as bright as Stevens immaculately pearly chompers. The throbbing soundtrack is a living heartbeat, becoming a secondary character that informs the laughs and tension in equal stake. Gorgeous sets born of Susan Magestro make up for the otherwise bland middle American landscapes with a final Halloween-themed set piece that was exactly what one hoped for.
When all is said and done, The Guest is 30-caliber entertainment, mainlining laughs, thrills, and excitement like a junkie on a bender. A step forward for the already majorly competent Wingard, this kind of movie reminds us of just how much fun a time at the movies can be.
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“Locke”
Directed by Steven Knight
Starring Tom Hardy
United Kingdom
85 Minutes
True to its name, Locke slams us in a car with Tom Hardy for 85 mins as he’s forced to steer his life in new directions that ultimately orchestrates the end of his small but satisfying world.
Zipping along sparsely populated English highways in a sporty beamer, Ivan Locke (Hardy) undertakes an abrupt quest – a writ of obligation passing as him “trying to do the right thing.” A metaphorical captive to his BMW, trudging through the night towards a new destiny, Locke buries himself in a series of bluetooth-enabled phone calls to his family and work that will occupy the film’s entire run time.
Absconding from what we would normally call responsibility, Locke’s plight is an almost heedless attempt to break from the legacy circle. His attempts to step out from the footsteps of his absentee father is tragically symbolic of the hubris of “collected” men; men of power destined for greatness. Although Locke never fits the part of controlling patriarch, his calculated but desperate attempts to play Mr. Fix It to everyone’s problems showcase both his naivety and strength, traits that Tom Hardy embodies and radiates.
With Locke acclimating to the off-suit hand he’s been dealt, Hardy is given ample opportunity to flex his significant dramatic chops. Though he’s mostly known for his physically brutish roles (look no further than his turn as Bronson and Bane), Hardy should not be overlooked as a dramatic powerhouse and Locke is proof of that fact. Watching Hardy try to remain calm and collected shows unmatched restraint, even when his life goes up in flames.
Locke shows us that when all goes to hell, you never dictate the reactions of humans. Sometimes when we think the pieces are just scrambled, the puzzle ends up having shotgun-sized hole blasted in its center. There are just some things you can’t fix. Likewise, Locke’s attempts to maintain composure in his darkest hour is an exercise in holding fistfuls of sand. And though these elements provide some lasting dramatic tension, they lack the stakes to keep us invested for the duration of a feature film.
Filmed guerilla-style over the course of eight days, director Steven Knight had Hardy relive the entire 85-minute saga time-and-time again without dividing takes into traditional scenes. Immersive as this art-imitating-life experience must have been for Hardy, the method-level commitment doesn’t necessarily translate into a fully captivating final product. Greater films have managed the confines of a single-set shoot (look at Buried) but Locke can’t live up to this hardy task. Instead, a lackluster script, sparse story development, and droning repetition produces tiring monotony that wears on the audience like a grinding axel.
Wasted opportunities for much needed atmospheric claustrophobia are as evident as anything onscreen and it’s squandered moments like this that detract from Locke‘s overall impact. Another major ding for the script department involves a series of scenes spent communicating with someone who isn’t there. Although it has it’s place in the narrative thread and character arc, it just doesn’t play well and jars our sense of reality.
So while there are great things to be found in Locke (hearing Hardy sport a proper Welsh accent is worth at least a few scenes), ennui ultimately takes the steering wheel and drives us in haphazard directions. But what can we expect from a film that spends a good thirty minutes discussing concrete?
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