No Exit (2022)

After hearing the news that her mother is dying, a young woman (Darby, played by Havana Rose Liu) escapes the rehab centre that she has been ordered to stay in, steals a car, and drives many miles to visit her in hospital. Unfortunately, a strong blizzard makes it impossible to complete her journey, leading to Darby having to shelter at an isolated building with four strangers. And then, while trying to find a spot where she can get a signal on her phone, she discovers a young kidnap victim in the back of a van. It's then up to Darby to save the girl, figure out who the kidnapper is, and keep herself alive.

Directed by Damien Power, only his second feature after the very good Killing Ground, this is a superior bit of entertainment, helped by the script from Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (adapting a novel by Taylor Adams). Everything is set up nicely throughout, from character relationships to the layout of the building, and there are some enjoyable twists and turns on the way to a third act that includes some great payoffs. This is polished entertainment, but it also isn't afraid to include a moment or two of real, painful, nastiness.

The cast helps a lot. Liu is excellent in the lead role, giving us a young woman who can dig deep down to find extra reserves of strength as she starts to face dangers that equal increasingly insurmountable odds of her surviving the night. Dennis Haysbert and Dale Dickey are the older couple stranded by the weather, and both do very well individually, as well as working perfectly with one another. Haysbert, in particular, is someone I'd love to see in more movie roles. David Rysdahl is okay, portraying a character defined by his shiftiness and jittery manner (so he's either bad or an overdone red herring), and Danny Ramirez is Ash, a young man who seems nice, but also could be a prime suspect . . . because it has to be someone. Mila Harris plays the child who has been kidnapped, and she does just as well as anyone else onscreen, although she has the least amount of screentime from the selection of main characters.

Although the main premise feels enjoyably unique, compared to so many other thrillers from the past few years, No Exit also has a feeling of familiarity throughout. From the struggling addict who may not always trust themselves to make good decisions to the crucial indecisiveness of someone who may not be able to kill others, even if it is necessary to avoid being sent to jail, this is a film that manages to make those elements feel fresh by placing them within the context of the revamped "whodunnit?" framework. Mixing the isolation with a very limited number of main suspects increases the feeling of danger for our lead, and not paring things down TOO much saves it from becoming repetitive and boring.

Maybe not one with much rewatchability, No Exit is simply a well-crafted thriller that should please most people. And the fact that the runtime is a nice 95 minutes makes it easier to slot into your viewing schedule.

7/10

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Netflix And Chill: Bloodline (2018)

Seann William Scott plays Evan, a school counsellor who has a very direct way of helping some of his students deal with serious problems. He kills people, and it often seems to be people who fully deserve it. He's also about to be a dad, so spends his time caring for his pregnant wife, Lauren (Mariela Garriga), and dealing with his slightly overbearing mother (Marie, played by Dale Dickey).

Arguably a strange choice for the fictional feature debut from director Henry Jacobson (with the majority of his time over the past decade spent on documentary works), Bloodline is an enjoyable, grisly thriller that lets everything unfold with an unabashed lean into the macabre humour of the whole situation, whether that's Evan simply doling out fatal justice or his plans being interrupted by a request from his pregnant wife. Despite me only being familiar with the overall premise of the show, I can see this being the kind of thing to appeal to fans of the slightly similar Dexter.

Scott does well in the lead role, playing up his nicer side as he interacts with people on a day to day basis and going about his more bloody business with a very matter-of-fact approach to the deadly deeds. His killing time is him at his most assured, while the everyday life moments have him working harder than anyone else around him, something that is made clear without his performance becoming too over the top (just). Garriga has to play the vulnerable pregnant woman, for the most part, and feels like a passive character until events conspire to give her some knowledge she was previously not privy to. Dickey plays up her bad streak more than anyone else, being the kind of passive aggressive parent who spends a lot of time being critical while supposedly just trying to be helpful, but she's good fun in her role. All of the younger cast members do good work, and Kevin Carroll is the kind of weary and suspicious detective so often found in these kinds of movies.

The script, co-written by Jacobson with Avra Fox-Lerner and Will Honley, is a bit silly when you stop to think about all of the separate elements. Thankfully, it doesn't make you want to stop and think about everything too often. It just moves from one enjoyably twisted scene to the next, trying hard to keep things just as grounded as they need to be, and always poised to take one giant leap into entertaining absurdity. Whether you go along with it or not is a different matter entirely, and I can see people rolling their eyes and dismissing this as a truly awful viewing choice. Personally, I had fun throughout.

It's not really making any major comment on social issues, it's not asking you to overthink the central situations, all Bloodline wants to do is entertain you for the runtime. I think it does that. Some may want more gore, some may want more tension. It's not put together perfectly. But it's put together well enough for all it wants to do. I tentatively recommend it to those who want a movie not aiming to make them overthink things.

7/10

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