Director: Tony Glazer
Year: 2020
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: Block Island
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Plot:
Missing the ferry to a local island, a group of friends trying to get to a local party find themselves forced to take a ride with a sketchy boater and captain who end up hijacking the trip and forcing the scared group of kids into a deadly series of games for their own amusement, forcing everything to come to a head for everyone.
Review:
On the whole, this one wasn’t too bad of an effort. What really works here is the main set-up of getting the group stranded on the boat which manages to evoke quite a realistic tone. The manner in which they get trapped, inadvertently taking the trip with the sketchy fisherman to go to a party but yet becoming involved with the hostage situation that develops as they take the trip, comes incredibly well and believable in that a group of rich, unobservant college kids who are stuck in this tense and slowly-developing escalation. These scenes become rather engrossing as the group continually sees that there’s nothing they can do but fight back in order to stay alive as the dark torment starts to creep in. Playing off the established storylines and some brutal moments that are perfectly in league with the comedy aspects that seem light and naturalistic, there’s quite a lot to like with this one.
There’s not much really wrong with this one. The main aspect on display against this one is the seemingly asinine reasoning as to why this whole thing takes place with the explanations about how the whole robbery thing started. The whole concept of the two doing this for the retribution of what happened to his ancestors and then taking it to far darker extremes than they expected yet still comes off incredibly underwhelming due to a completely lame explanation with no back-up or follow-up. It’s just dropped once that’s been said and just tends to meander on with this series of encounters with no other resolution, undermining what’s going on quite heavily. As well, there’s too much going on at the end to enable the heroes to get the upper-hand, tending to rely on last-second interventions and missed opportunities to press their advantage to finally take him out causing this to end somewhat jumbled. However, there’s not much else to be had here.
Overview: ***.5
A far more enjoyable thriller than expected, this one has enough to like about it staying interesting with some dark encounters and confrontations that end up raising this above some minor elements that don’t hold it back too much. Give this a shot if you’re a fan of these singular-location thrillers or find this style enjoyable, while those that don’t appreciate these aspects or the style overall should heed caution.
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