THE GOOD
Skarsgård – You can tell from the trailer that this film was made with the intent of minimizing the budget. Because of that, this needed to be a one-man show, and that one man needed to be compelling enough for us to both root for him and for things not to get too repetitive. Skarsgård is so good, and his range is so far. This is the man who played Pennywise and Nosferatu, for goodness sake, and here he is conveying such vulnerability with the most ludicrous of circumstances. That he can hold down a film under the circumstances speaks to his gifts. He is on the track to greatness.
The third act – Given the ludicrousness of the story, it did end in a way that would suggest that the vast majority of this movie’s budget was spent punctuating it in as grandiose a fashion as it possibly could. And it did.
THE BAD
The gimmick – The one-location gimmick is not bad at all. However, the circumstances must be just right for your film not to suffer from it. If it’s 12 ANGRY MEN, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, or RESERVOIR DOGS, the space is so wide that you don’t necessarily have to resort to Hotshot Director Bull* all the time. But in films like LOCKED, BURIED, or PHONE BOOTH, I can’t help but notice how many unnecessary shots there are and how many strange edits they just happened to be. In the case of all of the latter movies, they just so happen to be anchored by such a strong leading performance that you don’t catch all of the annoying sh*t until the second viewing. I get it, filming on a budget and all that. But I’m not a big fan of this gimmick when it’s in such tight spaces.
THE UGLY
The preachiness – Holy f*, does this movie hate millennials and Generation Z. This is a movie that thinks it’s preaching about how criminals don’t get punished by the law for committing felonies such as car theft like they used to. It wants you to believe that the motive of the villain for doing what he does is because of a psychotic reaction to grieving a loved one… But no. There are all these random cutaways showing mentally ill homeless people and multiple speeches about how good the world used to be in comparison to the pre-apocalyptic times of today. You see, back in the day, I guess they just used to leave their doors unlocked when they went to sleep at night. There were no reasons to roll up the windows when you left it in a parking lot at a mall. According to this film, the world was a safe place back in the day, and these young whippersnappers f*** it all up. This is the point that the movie hits over the head ad nauseam.
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It is a shame that this movie was filmed with the intent of budgeting everything. I get the purpose of it. I respect the efforts and all that. But there are some really big ideas here that this movie has going, and it could have benefited from about 20 minutes more storytelling, properly setting up the antagonist for the third act, and genuinely getting forth its message without all of the on-the-nose dialogue that exists.
I know it’s insulting these days to say that something is more of a Netflix movie than a theatrical release, but I don’t. There is a place for Netflix movies; some are even enjoyable. This is a world-class Netflix movie released theatrically and deserves a shot to be seen.
It’s playing in theaters now.
