Hoo boy. This movie requires some effort. What starts off as a brutal exploitation flick, surely to weed out the meek, evolves into an absorbing treatise on primal human conditions in a barren, deserted wasteland.
While Ana Lily Amipour's sophomore effort contains pulpy roots, littered with outrageous characters and circumstances, it also tackles some grand topics. Our white trashy heroine Arlen is unceremoniously turfed out of society to fend for herself behind a Texan fence, where lawlessness and depravity are the rule of the day. She is soon captured by a tribe of cannibals, and mayhem ensues.
Dystopian futures as these don't seem all that far fetched any more. "The Bad Batch" may serve as a warning, but chiefly it serves as dusty entertainment. Much like the "Mad Max" franchise, it is a world full of crazies scrambling to survive in glorious sunbaked vistas.
Sporting a primo porn stash, Keannu Reeves pops up as a bizarro, robe clad cult leader. Giovanni Ribisi slips in several rambling, asylum escapee diatribes, but it is an unrecognizable Jim Carrey who absolutely steals the movie as a wizened bag man.
"The Bad Batch" has the art junk, lost inhibition, drug and music orgy feel of Burning Man, and because it's stealthily asking tough questions, has much more going for it than the cheap veneer may indicate.
