Mark Reviews Movies: POINT DEFIANCE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 18, 2020

There's no definitive moment in Point Defiance when the screenplay's long game becomes clear. It's more of a mounting realization that there is no other way that fraternal screenwriters Justin (who also directed) and Timothy Foia's story could be resolved. That's a common trap among such twist-based tales: An air of mystery may be vital to the story's atmosphere, but when it overwhelms everything else, we can start to sense, not only the way in which filmmakers are toying with us, but also what the end result will be.

That's a shame here, because the Foias offer up a solid setup, founded upon a pair of characters whose personalities clash in such believable ways. The drama between these two men, long-separated brothers who are facing the pain of their shared history and the guilt of some unspoken sins, is engaging enough that we wish the filmmakers had left well enough alone.

The elder brother is Peter Allen (Derek Phillips), a wealthy stockbroker who lives alone in an isolated mansion. His daily routine is dull and restricted to his home, because he's currently under house arrest and wearing an ankle monitor. The monotony ends when his brother Alex (Josh Crotty), currently on leave from military service, arrives.

Peter has to stay put and live a clean, sober life. Alex just wants to drink all day and forget whatever is causing him to sleepwalk in the middle of the night. One evening, Alex hires a sex worker named Crystal (Lauren Elaine). While she's gone in the morning, Peter starts to suspect that her departure might have been of the existential variety—and that Alex might have made it happen.

The movie is a thriller in terms of plot, given Peter's suspicions and Alex's odd behavior and the possible connection to a woman who has been missing for a year. At its core, though, is a study of the relationship between the brothers—their differences, their passive-aggressive words and behavior, their old and lingering resentments. Phillips, as the quiet of the pair, and Crotty, as the aggressive and psychologically wounded veteran, are quite good, especially in how their interactions slowly raise the tension between the characters.

This, apparently, is not enough for the Foias. Too much to the movie's detriment, the filmmakers' twisty game—narratively convoluted, psychologically muddled, ultimately predictable—eventually becomes the focus of Point Defiance.

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