A hotel night clerk – who has an ASD – witnesses a murder via the recordings he makes of guests. Good performances aside, this is neither trashy enough to revel in its mashup of Rear Window and the likes of Vacancy, nor pacy and committed enough to its thriller elements to work in dramatic terms. Well-directed though, and not without its pleasures.
Tag: Tye Sheridan
Dark Places (2015, dir. Gilles Paquet-Brenner)
Now an adult, the survivor of a family massacre investigates their past. Low-key drama with thriller elements that can’t work out if it’s a reflective or a genre piece; the result is a mixed bag. Good-looking and well-cast and acted, but patchy. Intercutting between then and now dilutes rather than heightens tension.
Ready Player One (2018, dir. Steven Spielberg)
A teenager battles an evil corporation in a quest to control a virtual reality game-world. Sporadically spectacular but narratively dull SF adventure which improves on the source novel but still lapses into pop-culture reference tickbox territory at its lamest.
255 Review 