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CRAWL
Director: Alexandre Aja Cast: Kaya Scodelario, Barry Pepper, Ross Anderson, Anson Boon, George Sommer, Ami Metcalf, Jose Palma, Morfydd Clark MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:27 Release Date: 7/12/19 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 12, 2019 Simplicity is the key to Crawl. It's a lean and mean thriller in which a young woman and her father (and occasionally the little family dog) are terrorized by an alligator. Then they're terrorized by two alligators, and after that, even more of the killer reptiles appear, until there seems to be an entire swamp's worth in the neighborhood. That's because, well, there is technically an entire swamp's worth of alligators in the neighborhood. The screenplay by brothers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen wastes no time on anything more than is necessary. We understand the premise almost immediately. We learn just enough about the main characters' backgrounds to make them sympathetic. Once those characters are in place to be threatened by the gators, the main goal doesn't really need to be spoken: Get the hell away from the man-eating creatures that have infested a flooded Florida neighborhood during an intense hurricane. The rest of the film presents Haley (Kaya Scodelario), a college student and swimmer, and her dad Dave (Barry Pepper) with a series of problems—most of them, obviously, having to do with the fact that an alligator or two are in the way of their escape. It's simple, yes, but that's not necessarily a limitation. Here, it gives the screenwriters and director Alexandre Aja plenty of chances to put their protagonists in the kind of peril that seems logical, to allow those characters to be smarter than the situation at hand, and to create a lot of suspense out of what turns out to be the characters climbing three stories. Of course, it also gives them a lot of opportunities to present us with even more reasons to fear those ferocious reptiles that have been around since prehistoric times. The setup has Haley, unaware that the huge hurricane that was supposed to miss the state has changed course right toward it, going to check on her dad after a worried call from her sister Beth (Morfydd Clark). The student swimmer, whose father encouraged her talent throughout her life, has lost touch with Dave following his divorce from the sisters' mother. She secretly blames herself for the split but, nonetheless, is mad at him for it, too. That's about the end of any actual character development, but it's enough—maybe even more than we might expect—for this particular story. Haley looks for her dad at his new condo but only finds the family dog, which she takes with her on her search. She assumes that Dave must have gone to what used to be their family home, and ignoring warnings from the local cops about the severity of the storm and flooded roads, Haley goes there anyway. All of this takes about 15 minutes of screen time. There's no unnecessary bloat to what unfolds in this tale. Almost immediately after Haley finds Dave passed out—as well as with a nasty-looking wound on his shoulder and a compound fracture of his leg—in the house's crawlspace, she also has a close call with an alligator. The daughter has to drag her dad's unconscious body on some tarp—right back where they started behind the safety of some very sturdy pipes. There's a lot to appreciate about this sequence, especially in how it establishes that these characters aren't going to be the type of unthinking dopes that can be so common in movies such as this. They're smart enough to prevent any head-shaking or eye-rolling on our part, and more importantly, they're cleverly resourceful in ways that match the simplicity of the whole affair. The stupidity belongs to several side players, such as a group of thieves who rob a gas station across the street and a pair of local cops (One of whom appears to forget Haley's warning about the alligators in the basement for a brief but fatal moment). Since we're fairly certain neither of our lead characters will meet a brutal end until at least the story's climax, someone has to be—or, in this case, many people have to be—eaten in grisly fashion for the point to be made. The protagonists, though, get by through simple maneuvers—going for a dropped cellphone, actually being quiet while doing do, remembering that there's a screwdriver on the ground when a second and previously unknown alligator suddenly appears. If we have a basic degree of sympathy for Haley and Dave on account of their blamelessly troubled relationship, we develop plenty more through their actions under pressure. It should also be noted that Scodelario and Pepper are admirably invested in these roles. They're just as believable in the occasional quiet moment of interpersonal conflict and reconciliation as they in the much less-quiet moments of sheer terror. The two even help sell the computer-generated alligators, which are better when suggested through flashes of clamping jaws on flesh and through bone than when seen in full view. Parts of this make less sense. Either the alligators' strength changes depending on the requirements of the script, or this is a strangely built home, in which a staircase is made with toothpick-like construction but a shower door is resilient to the full weight and force of an alligator on the hunt. The beasts give chase to Haley upon seeing her in the basement, but they allow her and Dave mostly free passage while wading through the water outside. One could care about such inconsistencies in Crawl, but it's probably better simply to accept them as part of the not-too-dumb, gruesomely fun ride. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for bloody creature violence, and brief language)
