★★½
“Hyde and sick”
This gets off to an impressive and intriguing start. Cora Fisher (Pribilski) has a perfectly normal life. Then, she’s involved in a car crash. The next thing she knows, she wakes up in a hospital bed. Oh, to which she is handcuffed. Before she can come to terms with that, she is informed that ten years have passed. And completing the triple-whammy, Texas Ranger Jim Krueger (Llorens) enters, and tells Cora he’s going to make sure she gets the death penalty for the murders she committed. It’s safe to say, the movie has successfully gained my attention by this point. Guided by mysterious cellphone texts, Cora escapes the hotel and goes on the run, seeking to find out the truth about what happened.
It would be almost impossible for any film to live up to what is a cracking opening 20 minutes. You’ll perhaps have guessed from the star rating above, this certainly doesn’t. Part of the problem is the decision to leave Cora, when simply experiencing proceedings from her perspective would perhaps have been best, the audience discovering her past alongside her. Instead, it diverts into considerably less interesting areas, such as following Krueger. You’ll be forgiven if you’re making gestures towards your television set, trying to guide the plot back towards the heroine. The other problem is, when it does eventually get back there and resolution is obtained, the answer is considerably less interesting than the question. For spoiler reasons, I won’t go into detail, but it fell short of convincing to me.
I think the script ends up being pulled in too many different directions, and us not being able to do justice to many of them. For instance, there’s an odd Purge vibe, with people in masks, going round killing people with apparent immunity. It’s an angle that doesn’t seem to fit the psychological slant to much of the proceedings, and nor does it particularly appear to add extra value. The film is technically solid, and Pribilski does well enough in a role that must have been a dramatically challenging experience. The rest of the cast are largely functional. It does feel they are more like plot devices made flesh, there to move the story along.
But in the end, it is that story which represents the movie’s biggest problem. I’m always dubious about amnesia as a device. It often feels a lazy way for film-makers to generate mystery, which can then be equally easily solved by the protagonist miraculously remembering things again, as and when needed by the plot. This is a good example of that: without the convenient medical condition, the movie would have been over in about ten minutes. If you’re going to use it, the payoff has to be adequate for the disbelief you ask the audience to suspend. That definitely isn’t the case here and, despite some positives, this founders as a result, and struggles to make it over the finish line.
Dir: Dallas Burgess
Star: Kelsey Pribilski, Chip Llorens, Avi Lake, Diana Rose