Sadly, I have to start this review with a warning, for those who just want to skin. Brooklyn 45 is not a good film, and I'm frankly a bit bewildered by the praise it has received.
Written and directed by Ted Geoghegan, who gave us the excellent We Are Still Here, everything begins with a group made up largely of war veterans all getting together at one house at the end of 1945. The host for the evening is Lt. Col. Clive Hockstatter (Larry Fessenden), and the main attendees are Mjr. Paul DiFranco (Ezra Buzzington), Mjr. Archibald Stanton (Jeremy Holm), Marla Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), and her husband, Bob (Ron E. Rains). Locking the door once everyone is in, Hockstatter eventually convinces everyone that they should try holding a seance. He really misses his recently-deceased wife, and a seance might help him feel a bit less pained and lonely. That doesn't really work out as planned, which leads to a tense situation in which everyone is now effectively trapped in the house, and ready to do a whole lot of bickering.
I guess I can see what Geoghegan was going for here, and the tagline refers to "ghosts of your past", but he ultimately fails to achieve the realisation of his vision. Characters aren't developed enough, the past events never feel as overwhelming and life-altering as they could be, and there are very few proper chills or scares. Everything looks nice enough, which is the least you should expect from a film in which a very small cast is mainly kept in one fairly small room, but the content is lacking.
As for the actors, I wish they had been good enough to help distract me from the failings of the film, but they're often unable to do anything to improve the poor writing. Ramsay is the best, and works well with a sorely-underused Rains, both feeling a bit more nuanced and fleshed-out than anyone else onscreen. Both Holm and Buzzington are disappointing, and neither are helped by the fact that they have to spend most of the movie stubbornly repeating the same sentiments over and over again, because Geoghegan thinks that is enough to define them. Fessenden isn't a main presence for too long, but does okay with what he's given, and Kristina Klebe turns up almost a third of the way into the movie, having to then spend the rest of the screentime repeating herself in a way that's very similar to Holm and Buzzington.
There are one or two good ideas buried in here, particularly when it comes to the parallels/differences between military life and civilian life, and how some people will always feel inclined to stick with an identifiable chain of command, but they're buried deep by the time the end credits roll. Far too many moments amount to nothing of real substance, with a good majority of the runtime dedicated to the kind of tiresome circular arguments that are reminiscent of the worst conversations I have had on social media.
I like Geoghegan, and he at least deserves props for presenting something that certainly feels different from any other recent horror movies, but this just doesn't work. Not only that, but it pretty much wastes the talent of everyone onscreen. And there were a couple of easy tweaks that could have greatly improved things (Brooklyn 50, with more time elapsed between military life and reintegration into civilian life, for example, would have allowed for more interesting developments and tensions, in my opinion). Maybe Geoghegan the director needs someone helping Geoghegan the writer. Because everything looks good enough, but it's a fancy bit of paper and bow on an empty gift box.
4/10
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