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VILLAINS
Directors: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Maika Monroe, Jeffrey Donovan, Kyra Sedgwick, Blake Baumgartner MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:28 Release Date: 9/20/19 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 19, 2019 In Villains, two inept criminals, who are mostly harmless, accidentally come across two experienced ones, who are anything but harmless. The movie, written and directed by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, features a devious sense of humor and a quartet of fine performances. The filmmakers, though, never find a sense of momentum that matches the wildness of the movie's premise and characters. The incompetent robbers are lovers Mickey (Bill Skarsgård) and Jules (Maika Monroe), who rob a store at gunpoint and whose car runs out of gas during the getaway. Looking for a new vehicle, they find an isolated house in the forest. After some dallying, the pair discovers a little girl (played by Blake Baumgartner), held prisoner in the basement. That's when the owners return. At first, George (Jeffrey Donovan) and Gloria (Kyra Sedgwick) don't appear to want any trouble. When Mickey and Jules insist that the girl come along with them, though, the homeowners reveal that there's a wicked streak beneath their polite, refined exteriors—in case the girl in the basement isn't enough of a giveaway. It doesn't seem as if it is for Mickey and Jules, who aren't too bright. They find out anyway. The rest of the story has the outlaw couple trying to escape from the house with the girl, while George and Gloria play a series of twisted games with them (He threatens violence, and she seduces Mickey while pretending to be his mother). It's played as comedy and, to an extent, works as such, if only because Skarsgård and Monroe are affably dim, while Sedgwick and especially Donovan really dig their teeth into the roles of psychopaths with an air of Southern hospitality. Try and succeed as the cast might, though, the movie itself quickly falls into a routine of contrived obstacles for Mickey and Jules to overcome, only to come across another one and another. In that regard, this is also a thriller, and Berk and Olsen offer the blood, a couple of close calls, and the psychobabble explaining the homeowners' natures. In planting this material in the realm of demented quirkiness, though, they're never able to generate any tension to the proceedings. Tonally, Villains is doing one thing—and doing it reasonably well. The actual plotting of this twisted tale is doing something else—and doing it without the same glimmer of madness. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for language throughout, some violence, drug use and sexual content)
