Mark Reviews Movies: THE SCORE (2022)

The Score, Gravitas Ventures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 2, 2022

With its droning songs and restricted setting, The Score isn't much of a musical. With its thin characters and aimless plotting, writer/director Malachi Smyth's movie also isn't much better as a crime drama. Mixing these modes certainly lends the material some inherent intrigue, but the result comes across as an incomplete, conceptual gimmick.

At its core, Smyth's screenplay is a low-key thriller and mystery, but it opens with a musical number. The songs, by the way, are all written by singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn, who also co-stars here as Mike, one half of a duo who has to bring tens of thousands of pounds to a meeting. The introductory song is the movie's best, if only because of the propulsive riff beneath the singing, pushing a trio of characters onward toward a date with destiny, and the minor-key melody and lyrics, if one can make out the specifics of the hushed performers.

Most of this, though, has little to do with music, even if there is a good amount of it, especially as a means of filling in the scant information we get about these characters and their motives. Flynn's character is meeting with Troy (Will Poulter), the younger brother of Mike's partner in crime, who is currently imprisoned—presumably on account of the theft that resulted in a bag filled with about £20,000 in cash.

The brother hid the bag, and only Troy knows where it is. Mike has arranged a meeting to hand over the money to an unknown party—for reasons about which Troy probably should be more curious. His character is intelligent about literature and art and other matters, but he likes to play dumb, too. Much of the underlying plot, though, depends on him being the thing he jokes about playing.

There's not much plot, both thankfully—because we don't have to concern ourselves with even more hole-filled particulars—and unfortunately—because Smyth clearly isn't confident about the exploiting the potential of a tale with a limited number of characters and an isolated setting. We have Mike, who's keeping a bunch of secrets about the meeting and his personal life, and Troy, who's merely going along with the plan because of his obligations toward his brother but doesn't get an actual motive until the two arrive at their destination.

It's an out-of-the-way diner in the middle of nowhere, where only couple customers come and go as a day of waiting unfolds (One, a photographer played by Lucian Msamati, attempts to add some philosophical weight to the proceedings, but the attempt is as empty as it is transparent). Working the diner's self-service counter is Grace (Naomi Ackie), an incisively perceptive and clever woman—although she doesn't seem to catch on to her persistent customers' business until the shooting's about to begin. Troy is quickly smitten with the server—so much so that he decides to make an entire change to his life, figure out a way to get his share of the cash, and invite Grace to come along with him on his new life's path.

In theory, the existence of this story as a musical, with its conventions of adopting and justifying such big emotional revelations by way of song, excuses Troy's sudden change of heart and his instantaneously deep love for a complete stranger. Poulter's naïvely genuine performance may sell the hopeless-romantic angle of the character, but there's a bigger issue at play here.

Flynn's songs, which are and/or start to feel repetitive (At some point, almost every major character in the story sings the same refrain about a river, a boat, and the possibilities therein), aren't nearly a strong enough backbone for such emotions. Flynn's whispered, jumbled singing of his own tunes, in particular, means that Mike's internal conflict—between the family of a guy who is like family to him and his own, actual family—doesn't register in the way the third act requires it to (Flynn's hangdog performance otherwise is effective, though).

As for Grace, she barely exists in this story as anything more than a smart, amusing ideal, who possesses enough personal problems that she might consider running off with a complete stranger, for Troy. Ackie is cleverly, drolly charming here, so the superficial elements of the relationship are convincing. It's just that every character and relationship here remains superficial—and not convincing enough on a level deeper than being part of the plot.

Some of this does carry through on the promise of a simple, character-based tale, such as Smyth's back-and-forth banter between Troy and Mike, as well as the flirtatious linguistic games between the criminal and Grace. Most of the story, though, is an act of delaying an inevitable standoff. Since there isn't much going on beneath the shallow characters and the musical gimmick, The Score does feel like an extended game of waiting for the payoff, which is more than a bit too predictable and formulaic for the movie's obvious but unfulfilled ambitions.

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