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THE DESPERATE HOUR
Director: Phillip Noyce Cast: Naomi Watts, Colton Gobbo, Andrew Chown, Sierra Maltby, Paul Pape, the voices of Woodrow Schrieber, Debra Wilson, David Reale, Jason Clarke, Michelle Johnston, Rebecca Flinn-White MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:24 Release Date: 2/25/22 (limited; digital & on-demand) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 25, 2022 Christopher Sparling's screenplay for The Desperate Hour is an unfortunate combination of two bad ideas. The first is the gimmick of its premise, which strands its protagonist in the middle of the woods—without a car and with no one to retrieve her—while a desperate, life-or-death situation involving one of her kids unfolds elsewhere. In theory, it seems a bit clever, until the mechanics of the scenario reveal how many unnecessary limitations this puts on the character and the narrative. The second main idea here revolves around the situation involving the character's kid. To be blunt, it's a school shooting, and to be blunter, the notion of making a high-concept, race-against-the-clock thriller out of such a tragedy simply feels intrinsically distasteful. That director Phillip Noyce's movie offers no insights, no solutions, and no consideration—either for the horrific and painful reality of such violence or society's unwillingness to do anything about it—at least spares us some insincere soapbox-standing. It's a small favor, though, because it certainly doesn't change a thing about the shallow, unconvincing, and exploitative movie we actually get. Our woman in the woods is Amy Carr (Naomi Watts), a widowed single mother whose husband died in a car accident a few days shy of a year ago. She has a fairly busy day planned, with her daughter Emily (Sierra Maltby) going to school, her teenage son Noah (Colton Gobbo) refusing to attend classes that day, her parents on their way home from a vacation, a car in the shop, and a memorial service for her late husband approaching. As part of her regular routine, Amy heads out for a jog on a forest trail. She makes little of the multiple police cars speeding toward town. Deep into her run, an emergency alert buzzes on Amy's cellphone. All the schools in town are on lockdown, on account of an "incident." After making and taking a few calls to and from 9-1-1 and friends and others, Amy learns what's happening: There is an ongoing shooting and hostage situation at Noah's high school. She doesn't know if her son is there, and it'll take about an hour to run to the local community center, where the police have established a place for parents to gather, wait, and, hopefully, re-unite with their children. The premise seems founded upon turning the emotional sense of helplessness in Amy's situation into a physical reality, but as soon as we realize that the entire plot boils down to a series of conversations to obtain information, the actual rationale for putting Amy in the woods becomes apparent. She would be helpless anywhere—at home, in a car, even at the community center. The difference, though, is that, in the forest, she has to run toward her destination, and running gives the material a false, transparent appearance of action. That façade of momentum is pointless, anyway. We quickly realize just how useless the protagonist is in this story, as well as how Sparling has to contrive assorted reasons to keep Amy busy. She keeps calling a compassionate 9-1-1 dispatcher (voiced by Debra Wilson), and when the voice on the phone can't offer her specific details about Noah or the situation at the school, Amy ends up getting help from a mechanic (voiced by David Reale) at the car shop she's supposed to stop at later, which just happens to be across the street from the high school. One somewhat intriguing conceit here is how messy and unclear the truth can be in such a chaotic situation, but when a police detective (voiced by Woodrow Schrieber) calls Amy with a lot of cryptic questions that turn out to founded on a mistake, the whole sequence of misunderstandings feels like a game—a particularly crass one, under the circumstances. Amy's running continues. More information is doled out or repeated, just to keep some semblance of a plot intact. The movie barely offers platitudes about the real-world tragedies that inspired its narrative (Amy notes that she can't believe someone could get so many firearms, and during the end credits, a character vows to "do something"), and a change of scenery only brings with it a decision so unbelievably wrong-headed on Amy's part that it's almost impressive Sparling comes up with a couple more that top it in terms of foolishness. The Desperate Hour exploits real horror for no meaningful purpose. It's also an unpersuasive thriller, which only adds injury to insult. Copyright © 2022 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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