BRING HIM TO ME - Mark Reviews Movies

Bring Him to Me, Roadside Attractions / Samuel Goldwyn Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 22, 2024

For a while, the tension and drama of Bring Him to Me are between the lines of what's actually happening. It's a simple setup: two men in a car, driving toward an unclear destination, talking along the way, and occasionally having to deal with an obstacle or two. We may not know where the final stop of this road trip is, but the driver, an unnamed motorist of the getaway variety for a criminal organization, does. The where of it isn't as important as the fact of what will happen if or when he finally arrives with his passenger.

There's a good amount of dread in director Luke Sparke's minimalistic thriller, which rarely concerns itself with action and instead finds its primary interest in the way these two characters talk about or around the obvious. They're heading to a date with fate—the sort that's pretty much inevitable for people who get involved in this sort of business. One of them knows the deal too well, and the other is either blissfully naïve or in denial about this reality.

There's not much to the plot, in which everything of import has already happened or will reveal itself upon the pair's arrival at the last stop, and that's one of the strengths of Tom Evans' screenplay. Apart from flashbacks that fill in the obvious details of a robbery gone wrong, the narrative exists in the present tense and stays in close proximity to the driver and his passenger. The two fill the time with small talk about increasingly more noteworthy things, while one of them tries his best to evade the mounting realization that he's delivering a man to his death and that there's probably nothing he can do about it.

The central performances help to sell the thin material. Barry Pepper plays the Driver, who initially doesn't want to talk to his passenger because he doesn't like to talk business unless it's necessary and never wants to discuss personal matters under any circumstance. We've seen this character or some variation of him countless times before, but Pepper has a way of making him believable.

This is a man who is tired of the irritating requirements of his job—being at some crime boss' beck and call, dealing with young criminals who don't understand the professional courtesy of keeping mum or older ones who act with unprofessional recklessness, literally driving around and figuratively not going anywhere as a result. The exhaustion here is on a deeper level than that, though, and Pepper communicates that sense at every moment.

As for the passenger, he is played by Jamie Costa and referred to as "the Kid," since he is in his 20s, is new to this line of work, and doesn't know how any of this stuff is supposed to work. The Kid's no angel, of course. He does, as those flashbacks show, participate in an armed robbery of a rival criminal's setup and, as his conversations with the Driver reveal, have a nasty streak whenever he talks about his wife. He also, though, loves his daughter more than anything and anyone else, and since his own old man taught him exactly how not to be a father, the guy is determined to do anything for his little girl and, when all of this is finished, to actually be there for her.

They're in the car ostensibly to pick up each one's share of the robbery, which targeted Frank (Sam Neill). It didn't go according to plan, and now, the Driver's boss wants him to bring the Kid to their hideout—not to give the young guy his cut, but to kill him for either whatever went wrong or some other transgression.

The reason isn't too important, and if Evans' screenplay comes up short, it's in believing that the reason, some imagined requirement that material such as this demands a chase and a shootout or two or more, and a climax that does more work setting up a sequel than resolving its own narrative are vital. We can more or less forgive those flashbacks—telling us how things went badly and indirectly leading to an understanding of why the boss wants the Kid dead—and the action—staged well enough and, in the case of one seemingly hopeless standoff, emphasizing that atmosphere of imminent doom (Neill's presence as the tough-talking and promise-keeping rival helps, too, obviously).

After all, most of the story is devoted to scenes of these two talking, getting to know each other (Well, it's a one-way street, since the Driver is adamantly private), and watching as the Driver deals with the unpleasant idea of ferrying a young man to his death, which becomes more and more disagreeable as he realizes the Kid isn't just a job to complete. The simplicity of the plotting and the setting, with most of the story taking place in the confines of the car, means the attention is almost always on these characters, and it pays off.

What's not forgivable, though, is how this movie ends—or, better, doesn't end. Bring Him to Me takes its story all the way, and for some unknowable reason, it contrives a way to set up the premise for an entirely new plot. The move undermines everything that has come before it, turning it into a prologue of sorts for what might come next.

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