romkevdv17

Was not expecting a good film given the streaming service's standard, but Jeremy Saulnier absolutely delivers as director, I guess not surprising given his reputation with Blue Ruin and Green Room. The cast is great all-round, Aaron Pierre is a fantastic action star, never seen him in anything before but he delivers what you want from a sympathetic yet intimidating as hell protagonist, restrained and subtle. Anna Sophia Robb, best known for her roles as a child actress is terrific here too, great emotional range. Don Johnson is playing an engaging villain, not too much depth but entertaining nonetheless. The rest of the cast, though not notable actors besides a small part by James Cromwell, all do a great job, are very identifiably different from each other, they don't feel like a big crowd of extras or stock/token roles like some thrillers might do. This is less action than people seem to imply, even though reminiscent of Jack Reacher the action here is much more sparse, but interesting, the commitment to not killing people displayed is not made out to be some Batman morally-superior act, but a given, from a protagonist who just wants to get out of the situation he's in rather than unleash vengeance. There is a lot of different genre-tropes here that are used well, and mixed around, its clear similarities to Rambo First Blood are offset by the identity and motivation of the character not being so centred about his veteran past, he did not serve, he nonetheless has all the skills and composure from his time in the military. It also reminded me of the film The Negotiator, the way that someone is thrown into a police conspiracy and has to find any way out of it even, avoiding bloodshed, even as he is attacked from all sides, but here he is dedicated to the 'truth', but to his cousin he is trying to save. The cinematography is absolutely fantastic here, not flashy, but a great kinetic sense for capturing action without too much movement or confusion. The geography of every scene of tension is super clear, you know what is happening and where and it makes the suspense all the better for it rather than the film trying to force it with melodramatic action spectacle. There is a clear attention to detail in every single action and line of dialogue which I appreciate. It's not some loose jumble of action sequences or plot exposition, it is a lean succinct thriller, and it doesn't drag, as whenever there is a scene of dialogue not related to the plot, it builds character in an empathetic engaging way that only makes you more invested in future events. That might sound self-explanatory, who wouldn't want to have empathetic characters? But it's a tough thing to get right, and the dialogue here, matched with the enthralling performances (Aaron and Anna are both actors I hope to see in many more projects after this) carries the stakes of this film, far further than the introductory premise. It has some interesting twists and turns, the action feels subversive though obviously its hard to do anything new nowadays, it just had a great sense of not going over the top, the protagonist is not invincible, nor super smart.

I don't know what the rest of these reviewers are smoking, childhood nostalgia perhaps, but honestly even for its period this is extremely dull and slow. I appreciate a good thriller, with a ticking time bomb, this isn't that, it's an awfully simplistic dumbed down script, where the finest actors of British cinema at the time are forced to trudge through. The amount of time we spend on the ship's passengers just sitting around bored and irritated, not even tensions or relationships explored, just literal boredom, probably because they didn't have the budget. Every character is flat, reduced to very simple traits and melodrama, often just the casual racism/sexism caricatures, that while normal for the time are just a symptom of trashy makeshift screenwriting. A lot of the film we're a fly on the wall on the ship's most boring moments, they insert weird ADR lines of interactions that mean nothing and do nothing. Our defuser, played by Richard Harris, is the 'charismatic' man who makes jokes in times of danger/crisis, our captain is Omar Sharif who is just bored and desolate in his job. Anthony Hopkins gets a little more meat on the bone as one of the men tracking down the bomber. Easily the worst character is the organiser of parties and activities, an unbearably obnoxious and annoying character who serves no purpose to the story. Supporting actor, while often portrayed by great performers like Ian Holm or Julian Glover are given nothing to do here, except stand around and deliver some exposition. For the few fleeting moments of excitement we have the stock bomb defusing moments. I honestly can't emphasise enough how uninspired the screenwriter is, he works by stereotype/archetype/caricature only, and offers only a few half-jokes or attempting poetic lines about the danger of the situation. I'd recommend watching Black Sunday, which came out a few years later.