How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 20 August 2014
This article is a review of THE GUEST.
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“He is programmed to clean-up all loose ends,” Carver (Lance Reddick)
Disney’s POLYANNA (1960) had Hayley Wells titular outsider enter a town and bring positivity to its inhabitants. DOWNTON ABBEY’s Dan Stevens throws off cloistered post-Edwardian Britain for a new guise, an American veteran fresh from soldiering in the Middle East theatre. Turning up to a grieving household, at first it looks like Stevens’ David is going to shake the family up for the better. This ain’t no Disney flick; it’s from the writer-director team of horror-thrillers A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE and YOU’RE NEXT (those titles say it all, right?).
Disney’s POLYANNA (1960) had Hayley Wells titular outsider enter a town and bring positivity to its inhabitants. DOWNTON ABBEY’s Dan Stevens throws off cloistered post-Edwardian Britain for a new guise, an American veteran fresh from soldiering in the Middle East theatre. Turning up to a grieving household, at first it looks like Stevens’ David is going to shake the family up for the better. This ain’t no Disney flick; it’s from the writer-director team of horror-thrillers A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE and YOU’RE NEXT (those titles say it all, right?).
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Opening on a jogging David, the sort of shot seen in military films like LONE SURVIVOR, depicting the protagonist’s fitness levels, except this is from behind and has an ominous air. In a Southern state backwater town, David introduces himself out of the blue to the matriarch of the Peterson home, Laura (Sheila Kelley). Without checking the credentials of the stranger, sporting borderline-psychotic blue eyes, she believes that he is the friend of her deceased son Caleb – the only proof is his presence in a group photo on the mantle.
Rhett Butler GONE WITH THE WIND manners gets David easily inveigled into the fractured homestead. Ludicrousness, of how this almost random person suddenly becomes confident and nanny, is not lost on the filmmakers, David practically winks at the audience to bring them in on the joke. THE GUEST is a pastiche of cinema: From Clint Eastwood as the man with no name, to the insidious interloper in the movies of Shane Meadows, and the unhinged Michael Keaton in Pacific Heights, to the predatory Matthew Goode in STOKER.
First order of business involves sorting out the school bullies of youngest, Luke (Brendan Meyer). (The educational establishment is bizarrely monikered “Moriarty High School”.) Violent takedown in a 1980s-styled bar (reflecting the musical themes) has a satisfying crunch, and sets up David’s stall as a badass at ease in the company of fisticuffs. Father Spencer (underrated Leland Orser – SE7EN) and 20-year old daughter Anna (Maika Monroe) have issues solved by David lending a sympathetic ear, revealing a six-pack and leaving a trail of bodies (as appropriate to the problem at hand). Bloodthirstiness as bonding agent and aphrodisiac.
Thrown in for added hokum is a corporate military conspiracy, utilising the awesome-voiced Lance Reddick (a.k.a. Cedric Daniels in THE WIRE and Phillip Broyles in FRINGE). Gaudy and unsubtle, director Adam Wingard knows what appeals to genre junkies tired of creatives missing the mark or pulling their punches. However, the choreography and overall aesthetic lack the requisite panache to reach whoop-at-the-screen Saturday night pleasure levels.
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