★★★
“Home not alone”
Mary (Kessell) has a grudge, and probably with good reason, I’d say. Because the serial killer known as Diablo killed her daughter, Kelly, in a particularly brutal manner – finishing his victim off by burning her alive. With the help of information provided by FBI Agent Selena Wall (Adedeji), Mary puts the pieces of the case together, and eventually lures Diablo (Howard) into attacking her, then brings him back to her house. This has been turned into a hi-tech, maze-like warren designed to force Diablo to confront all his crimes, and in particular his murder of Kelly. Naturally, things don’t quite go as intended. Expecting rational, predictable behaviour from a serial killer was probably a mistake by Mary, despite her technological advantages.
This is certainly a novel take on the themes here: part serial-killer film, part vengeful mother flick. The script generally does a good job of dispensing information at a pace that keeps the viewer’s interest, without revealing everything up front. For example, after Mary gets injected with Diablo’s chosen paralytic drug, there’s a flashback which shows her injecting herself with the same stuff, in order to build up her tolerance, and use this to future advantage. It is a bit of a stretch that she has the perfect set of skills necessary for her task: home improvement, dark web knowledge, twelve years of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, etc. The agent funneling information to Mary is also just a little too convenient.
If you can overlook these speed-bumps though – and I didn’t find them too problematic – there is still a good amount to enjoy. This starts with Kessell, who comes over as a significantly more credible bad-ass than Jessica Alba in Trigger Warning. She has one mission, and is absolutely not going to let anything or anyone (be they Diablo, her husband, a nosy neighbour or the authorities) get in the way of it. In the early stages after capturing Diablo, she becomes somewhat passive, sitting in her control centre and pushing buttons. But once things go off-track, she is forced into more reactive and pro-active behaviour, the film gradually picking up steam until an impressively grim ending (albeit with a rather odd coda, one I don’t quite get).
Bamford showed up here earlier this year with another film, Air Force One Down. Although this is a little lower on the action scale, up until the end where Diablo and Mary go toe-to-toe, it is balanced out by Home Hard working better in terms of plotting. If flashbacks are sometimes used as a crutch for weak writing, here they are well integrated and move the plot forward. Among the cast, in addition to Kessell, praise is also due to Howard. He doesn’t get a single line over the course of the movie, yet still manages to portray a creepy and despicable villain. However, Diablo might not be as frightening as Mary, who feels the very embodiment of irresistible force.
Dir: James Bamford
Star: Simone Kessell, Andrew Howard, Rachel Adedeji, Joseph Millson
Republic Pictures will release the film digitally on June 25.