Who's there?: An intruder learns a lesson in petty crime in the taut thriller Don't Breathe. Photo: Gordon Timpen
DON'T BREATHE ***1/2 (88 minutes) MA
In this terrific, taut, dry-throated thriller, three largely clueless petty crims break into a dilapidated house in the crumbling part of Detroit, thinking their blind victim (Stephen Lang, the jarhead from Avatar) is a soft target.
They turn out to be wrong in this imaginative variation of Wait Until Dark as the house turns into a half-lit trap from which they can't seem to escape.
With nothing to cut away to, director Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) does a superb job building tension and delivering great thrills with minimal tricks. His largely unknown cast (Jane Levy; Dylan Minnette; Daniel Zovatto) go through the ordeal with increasing degrees of panic and disbelief, leading to an all-too-forehead slapping twist.
Young Australian filmmakers should check this film out to properly understand the principle of how third acts work in genre films, which is to keep topping what just happened beyond the point of audience satisfaction.
It's also noteworthy how this film joins a short list of fine, recent films - Green Room; 10 Cloverfield Lane; Room - largely set in one locale.
In the wake of blockbuster overload, each seem determined to demonstrate the same point, that all you essentially need for a good movie are three walls, a strong cast, a surprise-filled story and a solid dose of imagination.
BLOOD FATHER **1/2 (88 minutes) MA
Unexceptional, occasionally exciting chase film with Mel Gibson playing a grizzled recovering alcoholic whose destitute life is given purpose when his missing daughter calls him for help.
Cue elongated vehicular pursuits and well-staged gunplay efficiently directed by French action specialist Jean-Francois Richet (Assault on Precinct 13; Mesrine).
Whatever his personal faults, Gibson proves here what a fine actor he can be even in a B-movie, aggressively playing into his age and drawing on his well-publicised demons with rare conviction.
NERVE ** (96 minutes) M
Despite all the digital gadgetry that permeates life in the 21st century, it's a little surprising that cyber thrillers about the devilish downsides of technology have yet to coalesce into a sub-genre.
Then you sit through a film like Nerve and begin to suspect why.
The somewhat miscast 25-year old Emma Roberts plays a senior high schooler who is hounded into participating in an online game that dares competing participants into performing acts of greater and greater stupidity.
Unsurprisingly, the further the film goes, the stupider it gets.
Though the film cannot be faulted for its lack of pace or visual panache, the jump from a pretty good premise to outright implausibility is too big, resulting in a lot of wasted energy as directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Catfish) try hard pulling off a finale that is simply too silly to swallow, even given the film's heightened nature.
The film also demonstrates, yet again, how filmmakers are continuing to have a hard time making digital devices and platforms cinematically interesting.
Characters stare into screens large and small as graphics pop up to show us what they're seeing.
Nerve is overloaded with such gimmickry but it just doesn't sell. New York looks nice at night, though.
SUNSET SONG * (136 minutes) M
Hardcore fans of veteran director Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives; The Neon Bible) will likely lap up every sumptuously lit frame of his slow-moving, lovingly composed adaptation of the Lewis Grassic Gibbon novel about Scottish woman Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) who faces an assortment of hardships before, during and after the First World War. Everyone else, bring a pillow.
Despite its tedium, it's a fair bet this mordant opus might actually play better once it hits the ambient light of the home market, as you'll be allowed to hit pause every 30 minutes or so to go for a stretch.
