Review: “Oxygen” (2021)

May 3, 2021 by Keith Garlington

“Oxygen” is the next film from French director Alexandre Aja. You may remember his last movie “Crawl”, a surprisingly entertaining thriller about a father and daughter trapped inside their flooded home with killer alligators during a Category 5 hurricane. I admit on paper it sounded ridiculous, but it actually showed Aja to be a crafty filmmaker capable of capturing harrowing tight-quartered action and creating authentic edge-of-your-seat tension. I went into “Crawl” snickering and left smiling and genuinely impressed.

His follow-up “Oxygen” is a much different movie, one that will inevitably draw comparisons to the Ryan Reynolds claustrophobic thriller “Buried”. But the films have little in common other than their tightly confined settings. This one stars French actress Mélanie Laurent who I’ve enjoyed watching since her powerful breakthrough role in 2006’s “Don’t Worry, I’m Fine”. Here she’s tasked with carrying practically the entire onscreen workload, a daunting assignment but one that Laurent proves to be up for.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

Talking about “Oxygen” is tricky and saying too much would spoil what turns out to be an engrossing experience. As with most movies, the less you know the better but it’s especially true here. What I can safely say is that the movie opens with a woman waking up to find herself bound inside of a sealed cryogenics pod. Terrified and disoriented, she frantically tries to get her bearings within the dimly lit unit, the haunting sounds from her heart- rate monitor beeping in the background. Within the first few minutes Aja has his audience firmly planted in his suffocating setting. He then methodically begins unpacking the mystery.

Not only is the woman bound, but she’s connected to all types of medical gadgetry. But worse of all, she has memory of who she is or how she ended up in the chamber. After freeing her hands she’s able to power up the chamber which suddenly lights up with displays. She’s also introduced to the pod’s AI named MILO (voiced by Mathieu Amalric), short for Medical Interface Liaison Operator. MILO informs her that he’s there to answer “all of her medical needs” but with a few caveats of course. He also shares something you never want to hear, “System failure. Oxygen level: 35%“. This sets up one of the key tensions of the film as the woman must piece back her memory if she’s to have any chance of getting out before the oxygen runs out.

“Oxygen” hinges on three absolutely essential components: a captivating lead, camerawork that’s able to keep things visually interesting, and a script that keeps audiences invested without ever collapsing into tedium. Screenwriter Christie LeBlanc ensures tedium isn’t an issue by mixing race-against-the-clock tension with a smart multi-layered mystery. It results in a propulsive story that was constantly surprising me, both with its unexpected twists and the creative ways LeBlanc keeps the plot moving it forward.

And Laurent is certainly a captivating lead. This isn’t an easy role for anyone to take on, but she comes at it with a fierce sense of commitment. Her ability to sell every second of her character’s terror, stress, and frustration is not only impressive but crucial to the story. It’s not hyperbole to call this a must-see performance; one brimming with anxiety and raw emotion that also ably captures the protagonist’s resilience and resourcefulness.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

Meanwhile Aja and his DP Maxime Alexandre certainly do their part as well, enhancing the movie with a countless number of shrewdly calculated visual touches. With crafty camera angles and fluid movements, they make the most of their single location setting, using every inch of the pod’s ‘slightly larger than a casket’ interior to great effect. The few breaks we get from the cramped chamber mostly come through brief memory flashes – a swing in a backyard, a white lab rat, a hospital emergency room. As you would expect, these well-shot and well-utilized snippets slowly unveil pieces of the story, but they’re also welcomed chances for the audience to come out for air.

Fans of sci-fi thrillers are in for a real treat with “Oxygen”. Not only is it a great entry into Netflix’s portfolio, but its an audacious and absorbing slice of genre entertainment. Alexandre Aja pulls inspiration from several places and weaves it together with his own style to make something unexpectedly unique. Aja also knows he has an actress he can rely on and a script that sucks in the audience and ultimately pays off their investment. “Oxygen” premieres May 12th on Netflix.

VERDICT – 4.5 STARS

First Glance: “Undine”

April 30, 2021 by Keith Garlington

German filmmaker Christian Petzold made two of my favorite films of the last decade – 2014’s crushing post-World War II drama “Phoenix” and 2018’s beguiling “Transit”. His most recent film “Undine” released in Europe in 2020 and now it’s finally getting a US release courtesy of IFC Films. And considering his last two stellar efforts, I’m for anything Petzold puts out there.

The film sees Petzold reuniting with his two stars from “Transit”, Paula Beer and Frank Rogowski. Beer plays the titular character, a historian and museum guide who watches her world crumble after she learns her love Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) is leaving her. But when she meets Christoph (Rogowski) the movie takes on a sly fairy tale feel. The new trailer gives us a lot to chew on and makes it clear Petzold’s romance will be filled with mystery and may have a supernatural flavor. I’m incredibly intrigued.

“Undine” releases June 4th in select theaters and on VOD. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Percy vs Goliath” (2021)

April 30, 2021 by Keith Garlington

It’s sad to say but there aren’t enough meaty roles out there for actors and actresses past a certain age. And unfortunately that means there are certain kinds of stories that simply aren’t being told. It’s a shame considering the wealth of incredibly talented performers this crappy trend ignores and the missed opportunities at exploring an often untapped segment of the human experience. That’s one reason it’s such a treat whenever a movie like “Percy vs. Goliath” comes around.

This biographical drama from director Clark Johnson sees 78-year-old screen legend Christopher Walken playing 73-year-old Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer best known for his headline-grabbing court battle with the multinational agrichemical company Monsanto during the late 1990s. This textbook David vs. Goliath story saw a modest lifelong farmer reluctantly become an international inspiration and spokesman for independent farmers rights. The screenplay by Garfield Lindsay Miller and Hilary Pryor hits all of the story’s high points, especially regarding the prolonged legal wrangling. As a result the more emotional elements don’t quite get the attention they deserve.

Image Courtesy of Saban Films

Walken is a natural fit for Percy, a proud and earnest canola grower who farms land that has been in his family for generations. He’s what you would call a seed-saver which essentially means he saves seeds from his successful harvests to use in future seasons. It’s the way his father farmed and his grandfather before him. But one day Percy is notified of a court order allowing representatives from agro giant Monsanto to take samples from his fields. They find traces of their own manufactured gene in his crops and end up suing him for patent infringement.

Percy hires local lawyer Jackson Weaver (Zach Braff) to handle his defense but they quickly learn it’s going to be an uphill battle. Monsanto’s team of bullish attorneys led by Martin Donovan use their client’s limitless resources to add both public and financial pressure. As the case picks up traction with the media, Percy is approached by an opportunistic environmentalist named Rebecca Salcau (Christina Ricci). She encourages him to go public which is far from Percy’s style. “Getting his drivers license photo is too much limelight for him,” says his gentle and loving wife Louise (a wonderful Roberta Maxwell) who really is the heart of film.

Soon Rebecca has Percy at speaking engagements, on television talk shows, even flying to India. A true grassroots defense springs up with checks and letters of encouragement coming in from farmers around the world who were forced to settle with Monsanto. Johnson’s film focuses just as much on Percy shedding his pride and seeking the help from others as it does the actual courtroom drama.

Image Courtesy of Saban Films

Unfortunately some of the story details fall through the cracks. There’s clearly some tension between Percy and his bitter and disgruntled son Peter (Luke Kirby) but it never gets touched. The movie acknowledges their rift but never gets into the root cause. We also get a handful of brief scenes referencing how Monsanto’s campaign to vilify Percy turns the local community against him. But the scenes are brief and leave a lot of potentially fertile dramatic ground unplowed (how’s that for a beautifully bad pun).

Still, there’s a lot of inspiration in the movie and particularly in Walken’s performance. He grounds Percy Schmeiser in a way that gives us an vivid image of a proud, honest man who through circumstances outside of his control becomes a reluctant hero to many around the globe. He’s an easy character to root for especially in these current days. So much more of Percy’s personal life is left begging to be explored, but the film gives us enough to gain a good understanding of how the little man can be strategically and methodically squashed by big corporate power. And as you watch this little man fight back you can’t help but be encouraged. “Percy vs. Goliath” opens today (April 30th) in theaters and on VOD.

VERDICT – 3.5 STARS

First Glance: “New Order”

April 29, 2021 by Keith Garlington

NEON is one of the most compelling distributors of our day. A few days back they dropped a trailer for what looks to be another fascinating part of their catalog. “New Order” is the latest film from visionary writer-director Michael Franco. This dystopian thriller looks to have a biting relevance and an unflinchingly brutal perspective on class, civil unrest, and government power. The film premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Frstival. Now it’s on its way to American theaters courtesy of NEON.

The film sets itself in Mexico in the not-to-distant future. In the early scenes we see a lavish high-society wedding suddenly interrupted by armed rioters. The invaders are part of a violent uprising of the oppressed lower class who overrun the city. Meanwhile the government sees the chaos as an opportunity to overpower the populace and put in place a military-ran dictatorship. Obviously Franco lays some heavy topics on the table and it will be interesting to see how far he goes with it.

“New Order” opens in select theaters May 21st. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Things Heard & Seen” (2021)

April 29, 2021 by Keith Garlington

Fresh off her recent Academy Award nomination for “Mank”, Amanda Seyfried and Netflix team up once again in “Things Heard & Seen”. This slow-burning supernatural thriller comes from the writing, directing, and producing duo of Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman. Based on Elizabeth Brundage’s 2016 best-selling novel “All Things Cease to Appear”, the movie advertised itself as an old-fashioned haunted house tale (check out the trailer to see what I mean). In reality it’s a fraught marriage story full of dark secrets and ugly revelations.

Set in the early 1980s, Seyfried plays Catherine Clare, an art restorer who has a happy life in Manhattan. She reluctantly agrees to leave it all behind after her husband George (James Norton) gets a teaching job at a small college in upstate New York. The couple and their 4-year-old daughter Franny (Ana Sophia Heger) move into an old farmhouse nestled in the rural Hudson Valley near the small town of Chosen. George begins his tenure as an art history professor, quickly climbing up the social ranks with his students and the faculty. Meanwhile Catherine is left at home, isolated but perhaps not as alone as she thinks.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

The metaphor-heavy story starts taking shape once Catherine begins finding old items around the house that belonged to the previous owners – some yellowed sheet music, a tattered old book, a mysterious ring. She also begins noticing weird occurrences, mostly at night – flickering lights, a strange smell, eerie shimmers of light. It all compels her to dig into the history of the home which turns out to have an ugly and violent past. Other people in the area seem to know what went down there including two local brothers (Alex Neustaedter and Jack Gore) who the Clare’s hire to work around the place. Even George seems to know more than he’s letting on.

And much like the house, George begins showing signs that he too has some secrets of his own. The facade of a loving and tender family man from the early scenes crumbles and is replaced by a smug and egocentric narcissist who’s more interested in his notoriety at the college and a particular young stable worker named Willis (Natalia Dyer). As Catherine and George inevitably grow further apart, simmering old tensions that they’ve been able to navigate in the past now resurface to add more strain on the relationship. For example, Catherine is a devout Catholic while George is a condescending atheist. He wants to medicate their daughter because of her nightmares, while she thinks Franny is too young.

Rhea Seehorn (“Better Call Saul”), F. Murray Abraham, and Karen Allen help fill in pieces of the story. Seehorn plays a colleague from the University who befriends Catherine but doesn’t quite trust George. “I get suspicious when students worship their professors.” Abraham plays the head of George’s department and a firm believer in spirits (and not the drinking kind). And the underused but much welcomed Allen plays a real estate broker with some key insight into the mysteries of the Clare’s house.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

Sadly, the film’s nicest surprise leads to one of its biggest problems. At its core this is very much a stinging relationship drama centered around a souring marriage. While not all of Catherine and George’s choices makes sense (a couple are downright baffling), Pulcini and Berman chronicle the slow collapse of their once happy union with a shrewd and meticulous hand. But by making that the chief focus, the movie ends up shortchanging the supernatural element. The story hints at things like good spirits, malevolent spirits, curses, etc., but they’re never explored in a meaningful way and in many ways feel disconnected from the story.

“Everything in the natural world has a counterpart in the spiritual realm.” It’s a line from Abraham’s character that teases the supernatural angle the movie is apparently going for. Unfortunately this side of the story feels stitched in and finding meaning in it proves to be a chore. So we’re left wondering and digging for metaphors. Fortunately the relationship drama/thriller stuff plays well and is driven by a committed Amanda Seyfried along with a fun supporting cast. It doesn’t all make sense, but it has a rather nasty edge to it that keeps you locked in. It makes the film entertaining enough and as engaging as it is flawed. “Things Heard & Seen” premieres today (April 29th) on Netflix.

VERDICT – 3 STARS

REVIEW: “Without Remorse” (2021)

April 28, 2021 by Keith Garlington

Over the last few years we’ve seen an emergence of new young action stars. And while many of them cut their teeth playing Marvel superheroes, they’ve also ventured out to make more grounded old-school action flicks. Chris Hemsworth, Anthony Mackie, and now Michael B. Jordan are (thankfully) too talented to be confined to one category. Yet they’ve shown themselves to have the physicality and steely presence to carry these kinds of movies and they are helping to breathe new life into the action genre.

Jordan’s latest film “Without Remorse” lands on Amazon Prime this weekend and it packs a formulaic old-school feel. It’s based on a 1993 Tom Clancy novel and is co-written for the screen by Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples. It’s helmed by Italian director Stefano Sollima who (along with Sheridan) also made the underrated “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”. Original slated for a theatrical release by Paramount, the distribution rights were sold to Amazon after multiple COVID-19 delays.

Image Courtesy of Amazon Studios

Jordan plays Senior Chief John Kelly, a member of an elite Navy SEAL team who we first meet in war-torn Aleppo, Syria. Their team is called in to carry out a cut-and-dry hostage rescue, but during the mission John’s unit are surprised by Russian military forces protecting a secret arms depot. An exchange of fire results in Russian casualties which sets in motion a series of events that will forever change John’s life.

Back home in Washington DC some three months later, John is contemplating leaving the military for a new job in private security. He and his pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London) are only a few weeks away from welcoming their first child and John is ready for life as a family man. Sadly that’s a pipe dream for lead characters in these types of movies. The past comes back to haunt John when armed Russian assassins, in retaliation for the Aleppo encounter, murder his wife and leave him for dead. John’s life is saved but all that he loved is gone.

After a lengthy and painful rehab, a tortured and revenge-thirsty John is determined to find the people responsible for the death of his wife and unborn child. “They crossed the line. They brought their war to my house” But he finds himself caught in the gears of bureaucracy as the CIA and Department of Defense hash out a ‘proper’ response. Guy Pearce plays a frustrated Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay who is willing to slightly step outside the lines to get answers. Jamie Bell plays the perpetual fly in the ointment Robert Ritter, a weaselly CIA agent who always knows more than he’s letting on and is constantly handcuffing any progress in the name of government protocol.

John’s quest for vengeance thrusts him head-first into a world of shady geopolitics, where heads of power secretly move their pawns around the global stage with impunity. At first John takes matters into his own hands, but that comes with consequences and proves to be too big for him to handle alone. So despite the concerns of his commander and close friend Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith), Jack is put on her team to go behind Russian lines to extract an ex-Spetznaz agent linked to the killing of his wife and others on American soil. But for him it quickly becomes a battle of personal payback versus mission integrity.

Image Courtesy of Amazon Studios

“Without Remorse” has a broader and more sprawling story than you might expect. Not just in terms of global scale, but in its telling of John’s story. It covers a lot of ground with the character and Jordan’s gritty determined performance carries us through. The political side of the story can get a little muddy and at times is too thinly written for us to be invested. But the meat and potatoes of the story is Jordan embodying a character driven by anger and pain yet trapped within a dubious yet powerful system that calls the shots.

And of course there is the action, consisting of several fiercely kinetic gun fights and a couple of exhilarating set pieces (my favorite being a superbly shot plane crash in the Barents Sea). Jordan sells it all with intensity and ferocity to spare. He leaves us wanting more which is a good thing considering the mid-credits scene we get. It not only hints at a franchise but teases a specific something that will leave a certain segment of entertainment fandom chomping at the bit. “Without Remorse” premieres Friday (April 30th) on Amazon Prime.